Feasibility of national living guideline methods: The Australian Stroke Guidelines

Maintaining clinical guideline currency has been one challenge to traditional guideline development. This paper describes the methods used to maintain a large national guideline for stroke management. The Australian Stroke Clinical Guidelines are developed to meet Australian National Health and Medi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of clinical epidemiology 2022-02, Vol.142, p.184-193
Main Authors: Hill, Kelvin, English, Coralie, Campbell, Bruce C.V., McDonald, Steve, Pattuwage, Loyal, Bates, Peta, Lassig, Chris, Turner, Tari
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Australia
Bias
Clinical outcomes
Consumers
Decision making
Epidemiology
Feasibility
Feasibility Studies
Guidelines
Health surveillance
Humans
Literature reviews
Living evidence
Medical research
Methods
Rehabilitation
Research Design
Stroke
Stroke - therapy
Working groups
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Summary:Maintaining clinical guideline currency has been one challenge to traditional guideline development. This paper describes the methods used to maintain a large national guideline for stroke management. The Australian Stroke Clinical Guidelines are developed to meet Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) standards. Monthly surveillance is conducted for new systematic reviews and randomised controlled studies. Included studies undergo data extraction followed by preparation of updated evidence-to-decision frameworks which are used to inform updates, or development of new recommendations. Small writing groups made up of clinical experts and those with lived experience review and agree on changes, which are finally reviewed by a multidisciplinary Guidelines Steering Group. Draft changes are developed and published using the online MAGICapp platform, with dissemination and promotion via traditional methods as well as social media. Each month approximately 350 abstracts are considered, covering 96 clinical topics and taking on average 16 h to review. There have been four major guideline updates covering 34 new and updated recommendations. It is feasible to use ‘living’ methods to maintain the Australian Clinical Guidelines for Stroke Management. Further work is now needed to understand the impact of living guidelines.
ISSN:0895-4356
1878-5921
DOI:10.1016/j.jclinepi.2021.11.020