Our fifteen Working Groups have been set up through the drive and enthusiasm of members, keen to make an impact in a specific area. Some may be short term, with the objective of writing a publication; others, such as GIN Public are long established and continuously seek to make progress in their chosen area. The Working Groups have the opportunity to apply for a GIN grant to help achieve their goals.

If you are a GIN member and are interested in joining a Working Group, please email membership_manager@g-i-n.net, noting which group/s you would like to join.

Accelerated Guideline Development

Accelerated guideline development is a way to produce clinical practice guidelines or recommendations in a short amount time, six months or less, without losing in scientific quality.

Producing clinical practice guidelines requires substantial time (usually 12 months or more), expertise (not so easy to find) and resources (in constant decrease). First, guidelines producers have struggled to develop high-quality clinical practice guidelines, from the analysis of the literature to the constitution of the working and peer-review groups. The AGREE instrument has been a true help for the guideline’s producers regarding this point – even if the tool is about evaluating; it is also a good reminder for developing best practice guidelines. The ADAPTE manual has assisted in this task. It is an interesting tool which allows the reduction in the duration of the guideline development. The pressure of the public authorities and clinicians for having guidelines developed in a short amount of time, i.e., six months or less, is so strong in a fast-paced society that the community of the guideline’s producers have to find an answer quickly in order to meet demands.

Chair:
Emma McFarlane

Adaptation

Guideline adaptation is the systematic approach to the endorsement and/or modification of a guideline(s) produced in one cultural and organisational setting for application in a different context. Where high quality guidelines are already available, adaptation may be used as an alternative to de novo guideline development to customise the existing guideline to the needs of local users.

The development and updating of high-quality clinical practice guidelines require substantial time, expertise and resources. Health organisations are increasingly confronted by the need to standardise health policies and practises to better manage finite resources and to promote optimal, evidence-based patient care. There is pressure on organisations to produce guidelines rapidly, to ensure that medical practice is consistent with current, emerging medical knowledge and this work is often done with limited resources. Guideline adaptation recognises and responds to legitimate differences in organisational, regional or local contexts that could lead to variations in recommendations supported by the same evidence. We postulate that existing high quality guidelines as a resource may be an alternative to de novo development to reduce duplication of effort, enhance efficiency, and promote local uptake of quality guideline recommendations.

Following the development and evaluation of the manual and resource toolkit, the ADAPTE Collaboration decided to make these resources available to the international community through GIN. To view the toolkits please visit the Resources section of the Adaptation Working Group pages. The establishment of the GIN Adaptation Working Group supports and facilitates the involvement of GIN members in these activities.

Aims and Objectives of the Adaptation Working Group

The Adaptation working group aims to:

  • Support methods for efficient guideline development through the adaptation of existing guidelines and other sources of evidence syntheses
  • Refine the adaptation resource toolkit and develop additional adaptation resources
  • Provide support and training to groups undertaking or planning to undertake guideline adaptation projects

Chair:
Yasser Amer
Vice Chair:
Yang Song

Appraising and Including Different Knowledge in Guideline Development

About the AID Knowledge Working Group

Appraising and Including Different Knowledge in Guideline Development

Evidence-based guidelines whether national, regional, or developed by specialty groups, must search for, and explicitly consider, evidence from sources other than conventional clinical trials and their quantitative data. This need for appraising and including knowledge from a wide variety of sources in guideline development is well recognised. However, how to properly appraise (judge) and include (integrate) different kinds of knowledge remains unclear.

Cited from Wieringa S, Dreesens D, Forland F on behalf of the AID Knowledge Working Group of the Guidelines International Network, et al Different knowledge, different styles of reasoning: a challenge for guideline development BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine 2018;23:87-91.

Aims & Objectives

To bring guideline developers together, to

  • Identify methods and promising initiatives for appraising and including a wider range of knowledge sources in guidelines.
  • Share experiences with such methods and their application in practice.
  • Identify areas / questions for which methods are wanting.
  • Develop methods for appraising and integrating different knowledge.

We also aim to support capacity building and to foster collaboration among guideline developers worldwide in this area of methodological uncertainty.

Congratulations to the AID Knowledge working group on their latest publication: From “getting things right” to “getting things right now”: Developing COVID-19 guidance under time pressure and knowledge uncertainty.

Read it online here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jep.13625

Chair:
Dunja Dreesens

Vice Chair:
Lea Losch

Board Liaison:

Miranda Langendam

Artificial Intelligence

About the Artificial Intelligence Working Group

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into guideline development offers a transformative potential to improve the processes of evidence synthesis, recommendation formulation, and guideline dissemination. The GIN Working Group on Artificial Intelligence aims to harness AI’s capabilities to streamline and innovate guideline development practices across all domains outlined in the GIN-McMaster Checklist. 

Aims and Objectives

  1. To assess the current use and potential of AI technologies throughout the guideline development cycle, including evidence synthesis, recommendation        development, external review, and updating. 
  1. To develop a GIN-McMaster Checklist extension for the integration of AI in guideline development, providing clear guidance on best practices, ethical considerations, and quality assurance. 
  1. To produce comprehensive resources and tools that facilitate the adoption of AI technologies by guideline developers, including case studies, technical guides, and training modules. 

How to Join

GIN Members who are interested in joining should write to membership_manager@g-i-n.net

Chair: Holger Schunemann

Vice Chair

Board Liaison Amir Qaseem


GINAHTA

GINAHTA’s main objective is to explore common methods and to facilitate collaboration and sharing of products between the HTA (represented by INAHTA) and guideline (represented by GIN) communities.

The worlds of guidelines and health technology assessment (HTA) may be more similar than they appear at first sight.  To explore common methods and to facilitate collaboration and sharing of products between the HTA (represented by INAHTA) and guideline community (represented by GIN) a working group was established in October 2015.

INAHTA is a network of 51 HTA agencies that support health system decision making that affects over 1 billion people in 32 countries around the globe. With more than 2,100 staff and consultants working in the INAHTA network, there are clear benefits to connecting these agencies together to cooperate and share information about producing and disseminating HTA reports for evidence-based decision making. INAHTA serves this purpose. www.inahta.org

Aims & Objectives

The working group acts as a facilitator to join efforts of the HTA and guideline community by:

  • Identifying common methods
  • Identifying complementarities between the products of both communities and promoting joint projects
  • Elaborating a platform to promote collaboration and to share products and best practices

How to Join

GIN or INAHTA members who are interested in joining should write to: membership_manager@g-i-n.net

Co-Chair:
Holger Schunemann
Co-Chair:
Mouna Jameleddine

GIN Public

About GIN Public

The main objective of GIN Public is to support effective patient and public involvement in the development and implementation of guidelines. GIN Public offers a forum for exchange between patient and public organisations, guideline developers, and researchers.

Who we are

GIN Public is a working group of researchers, health professionals and consumers who promote ways to inform and involve the public in guideline activity around the world.

Aims and objectives

The main objective of the GIN Public Working Group is to promote ways to inform and involve the public in guideline activity around the world. GIN Public offers a forum of exchange between patient and public organisations, guideline developers, researchers, and others with an interest in patient and public involvement. This is mainly done through our discussion forum, working group meetings, and by holding workshops and presentations at conferences such as the GIN annual meeting.

Specific aims are to:

  • Provide a network for discussion of emerging methodology for patient and public involvement in guidelines
  • Provide a forum for the development of collaborations for guideline organisations and researchers who wish to improve patient and public involvement in guidelines
  • Develop standard methods on patient involvement in guideline development and implementation

GIN Public Toolkit: Patient and Public Involvement in Guidelines

For the full toolkit and all updates, please visit the GIN Public Toolkit section on our Resources page.

Online sessions & Workshops

A number of workshops and online sessions hosted by representatives of the GIN Public Working Group, can be viewed here.

Chair: Karen Graham

Vice Chair: Sarah Scott


GIN Tech

GIN Tech are members that are also software developers or members that are interested in technology development. We are currently made up of member-organisations that are also software developers, (both commercial and non-profit), members of in-house digital teams from different guideline producing organisations (e.g., NICE, Duodecim, Joanna Briggs Institute) or members that are just interested in tech development. The software developers and digital teams cover all aspects of guideline development, from evidence detection to publishing guidelines and production of point of care decision support.

Aims & Objectives

The core aim of the working group is to aid GIN members in sharing data from the various digital tools and providing a forum for members to discuss the best way to use the tools that are available. As part of this we aim to understand the needs of guideline producers, the issues you face and the opportunities for improvement that digital solutions may offer.

Chair:
Brian Alper

Guidelines Collaboration

Our mission is to identify and facilitate strategies for successful collaborations among guideline developers in the development of evidence-based recommendations.

Aims & Objectives

  • Identify facilitators and barriers to collaboration between guideline development organisations
  • Facilitate a community for sharing best practices and lessons learned across guideline developing organisations
  • Create a repository of tools and resources for future guideline collaborations; and
  • Develop a core group of dedicated individuals with representation from different specialties and guideline development organisations internationally, whose work will serve the larger GIN membership in the area of guideline collaboration

GIN GCWC proposes the following activities to support their vision

  • Conduct a needs assessment of guideline development organisations to elucidate knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to collaboration
  • Identify and explore common facilitators and barriers to collaboration between guideline development organisations
  • Identify current resources and strategies for the facilitation of collaboration during the guideline-development process, and modify or standardize, if appropriate
  • Examine current practices of reducing redundancy in research, specifically guideline development, to inform strategies for collaboration
  • Disseminate findings via peer-reviewed publication(s), and webinar or conference presentations
  • Develop an inclusive collaboration checklist (potentially building off existing guideline development checklists), which will include such documents as a template Memorandum of Understanding addressing important points that must be considered and agreed upon in advance of any collaborative effort
  • Create and maintain connections with different guideline-development organisations, especially those focused on collaboration, centralising of guidelines and evidence, and reducing research redundancy

Chair:
Rebecca Morgan
Vice Chair:
Toju Ogunremi

Guidelines in Medical Education

Guidelines are utilised by the full range of healthcare professionals and students to shape their medical practice. In particular, healthcare professionals and trainees are frequently faced with the challenge of identifying and selecting appropriate patient management strategies.  To the extent that healthcare professionals and students are guideline consumers, it is important for them to be able to identify high quality guidelines that have been developed using widely accepted methodology; appropriately implement the recommendations contained within these; and understand the limitations of guidelines.

Patients and other interested parties without a background in healthcare (i.e., family members of affected patients, administrators of support groups, policy makers, media, etc.) may also benefit from learning more about guidelines, including how they are created, how to interpret them, and their limitations.

Aims & Objectives

The mission of the GIME Working Group is to provide clinicians, healthcare students, and patients with educational materials to help them better understand how guidelines are created and how guidelines are used.  This Working Group has a mission distinct from that of the International Guideline Development Credentialing & Certification (INGUIDE) Program, as the latter is intended to train healthcare professionals to facilitate the development of guidelines (or to train others to do so), while the Guidelines in Medical Education Working Group aims to educate clinicians and patients on how to use guidelines, not to create them.  This Working Group is thus for guideline consumers, not guideline developers.

The group aims to:

  • Develop a network of guideline experts interested in furthering educational opportunities for guideline consumers, including healthcare professionals, patients, and others.
  • Identify educational gaps (i.e., through qualitative and cross-sectional research) that exist amongst healthcare professionals, trainees, patients, other constituencies, and the general public regarding guideline evaluation, utilisation, and application.
  • Develop educational and training materials and opportunities (e.g., webinars, handbooks, multi-level courses, mentorship opportunities) regarding critical guideline evaluation
  • Develop educational and training opportunities regarding best practices in applying guidelines
  • Adapt written and other educational materials for different constituencies (e.g., undergraduate students, medical students, other health professional students, practicing health professionals, patients, and others).
  • Encourage the expansion of formal coursework in the interpretation and use of clinical practice guidelines for medical students and other health profession students.
  • Form an advisory group comprised of representatives of different types of guidelines consumers.
  • Contact semi-governmental and governmental organisations active in the oversight of graduate medical education to see if they would like to jointly develop educational materials or guidelines pertaining to medical education.

Chair:
Murad Alam

Implementation

Aims & Objectives

The primary purpose of the Implementation Working Group (IWG) is to build capacity for guideline implementation.

To do so, the IWG will:

  • Progress the science of guideline implementation by generating knowledge and associated outputs/products on how to plan, undertake, enable, and evaluate guideline implementation
  • Promote the practice of guideline implementation by sharing knowledge and tools and organising and offering training opportunities.

Chair:
Sanne Peters

Board Liaison:

Roberta James

LMIC – Low and Middle Income Countries

The GIN Low and Middle Income Countries (LMIC) Working Group (WG) was created in 2015, to build a platform wherein issues related to resource-constrained health-care settings could be shared. This is an area of great need, not only in most developing countries, but also in some higher income societies wherein guideline development is at a nascent stage.

Aims & Objectives

  • To develop a network of people and institutions in developed and developing countries sharing a common goal to enhance healthcare in developing countries
  • To support activities targeted towards understanding the process of guideline development and utilisation in resource-constrained health-care settings, especially in developing countries
  • To explore methods to promote guideline development, adaptation, dissemination, implementation and research within developing countries.
  • To build capacity and capability at the institutional level in low resource settings- that can foster a culture of scientifically robust guideline development, implementation and monitoring.

Chair: Dr Radhika A G

Vice Chair: Narasimman Swaminathan

Board Liaison: Ekie Akl

Multimorbidity

The GIN Board of Trustees agreed to establish the Multimorbidity Working Group after considerable interest was shown in the topic at the GIN annual conference 2013, held in San Francisco. A list of useful resources on multimorbidity is now available on the website.

The newly established WP is seeking GIN members with an interest in this area to participate in and contribute to the group. The group will conduct business via teleconferences, email discussions and via the GIN website.

Aims & Objectives

  • Maintaining a section on the GIN website that will stimulate networking and contain references, materials, and tools on the management of multimorbidity
  • Providing a forum for the discussion and refinement of emerging methodology and recommendations on how multimorbidity can be addressed in guidelines
  • Arranging meetings and workshops at GIN conferences
  • Providing a forum for the development of collaborations for guideline organisations and research groups who wish to improve the care of patients with multimorbidity
  • Writing a position paper for GIN on multimorbidity

Chair:
Opeyemi Babatunde

Performance Measures

About Performance Measures

Measuring health care structures, processes and outcomes is key to assessing the quality of care and supporting quality improvement in health care (1,2). In practice, different terms are used (e.g., performance measure, clinical indicator, quality indicator, performance indicator) and are sometimes used interchangeably or to mean different concepts. Guideline-based performance measures can be used to support quality improvement, using evidence for improved patient outcomes including patient-reported outcomes, based on systematic review of the evidence and robust guideline development processes and methods.

(1)The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations(JCAHO). Characteristics of clinical indicators. QRB Qual Rev Bull. 1989;15(11):330–9.
(2)K Edward and H. Jermy, Health care quality indicators project conceptual framework paper. 2006: OECD Health Working Papers: 23, https://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/36262363.pdf.

Aims & Objectives

The GIN Performance Measures Working Group (PMWG) was set up 2012 to strengthen the link between evidence-based guideline recommendations and evaluation of quality improvement by performance measures. It has the following aims: 

1. To improve reporting on development and aims of guideline-based performance measures

The first objective in 2012 was set to develop standards for guideline-based performance measure development. When discussed again in 2013/2014, the group decided on the development of reporting standards rather than development standards because of a lack of a broad common methodological basis. 

2. To define requirements to enable guideline-based performance measurement 

When discussing methodological standards with an international perspective, the differences in guideline group processes and context led to the aim to share our different experiences and to learn about our shared needs. The aim of this is to successfully develop guideline-based performance measures and to implement them effectively to improve health care. 

3. To set methodological standards for high quality guideline-based performance measures

Although planned, the group still did not agree on methodological standards for guideline-based performance measures. However, this remains a goal and we continue to explore how this can be achieved.

Results

1. The group published 2016 “Reporting standards for guideline-based performance measures.” (Nothacker M, Stokes T, Shaw B, Lindsay P, Sipilä R, Follmann M, Kopp I; Guidelines International Network (G-I-N) Performance Measures Working Group. Reporting standards for guideline-based performance measures. Implement Sci. 2016 Jan 15;11:6. doi: 10.1186/s13012-015-0369-z. PMID: 26772173; PMCID: PMC4714427.)

A comparative review on guideline-based performance measures in different countries found reporting still improvable – and showed very different measures in different countries (Becker M, Breuing J, Nothacker M, Deckert S, Brombach M, Schmitt J, Neugebauer E, Pieper D. Guideline-based quality indicators-a systematic comparison of German and international clinical practice guidelines. Implement Sci. 2019 Jul 9;14(1):71. doi: 10.1186/s13012-019-0918-y. Erratum in: Implement Sci. 2020 May 20;15(1):36. PMID: 31288828; PMCID: PMC6617919.)

2. Group members took part in a qualitative study on experiences with guideline-based performance measures. From this, practical suggestions on how to realise PM could be derived as one result were gathered. Project outline and results were shared and discussed at the 2017 and 2018 GIN conferences (Nothacker M, Bolster M, Steudtner M, Arnold K, Deckert S, Becker M, Kopp I, Schmitt J. International experiences in the development and implementation of guideline-based quality indicators: a qualitative study. BMJ Open. 2021 Jan 9;11(1):e039770. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-039770. PMID: 33468525; PMCID: PMC7817790.

3. Group members added to the update of a systematic review on approaches of integrating guideline-development and performance measures (Langendam MW, Piggott T, Nothacker M, Agarwal A, Armstrong D, Baldeh T, Braithwaite J, Castro Martins C, Darzi A, Etxeandia I, Florez I, Hoving J, Karam SG, Kötter T, Meerpohl JJ, Mustafa RA, Muti-Schünemann GEU, van der Wees PJ, Follmann M, Schünemann HJ. Approaches of integrating the development of guidelines and quality indicators: a systematic review. BMC Health Serv Res. 2020 Sep 16;20(1):875. doi: 10.1186/s12913-020-05665-w. PMID: 32938461; PMCID: PMC7493171.)

Open tasks:

  • Agreeing on methodological standards for the development of high-qualityguideline-based performance measures
  • Agreeing on a pragmatic set of requirements for guideline-based performance measures as a guide for guideline groups to contribute to performance measures at different levels (from highlighting important recommendations for measurement to developing final recommendation-based measures)

Additional information

Selected Publications on Guideline-Based Performance Measures

  • Piggott T, Langendam M, Parmelli E, Adolfsson J, Akl EA, Armstrong D, Braithwaite J, Brignardello-Petersen R, Brozek J, Gore-Booth J, Follmann M, Leś Z, Meerpohl JJ, Neamţiu L, Nothacker M, Qaseem A, Giorgi Rossi P, Saz-Parkinson Z, van der Wees P, Schünemann HJ. Bringing two worlds closer together: a critical analysis of an integrated approach to guideline development and quality assurance schemes. BMC Health Serv Res. 2021 Feb 24;21(1):172. doi: 10.1186/s12913-020-05819-w. PMID: 33627104; PMCID: PMC7903641.
  • Parmelli E, Langendam M, Piggott T, Adolfsson J, Akl EA, Armstrong D, Braithwaite J, Brignardello-Petersen R, Follmann M, Leś Z, Meerpohl JJ, Neamtiu L, Qaseem A, Rossi PG, Saz-Parkinson Z, van der Wees PJ, Schünemann HJ. Guideline-based quality assurance: a conceptual framework for the definition of key elements. BMC Health Serv Res. 2021 Feb 24;21(1):173. doi: 10.1186/s12913-021-06148-2. PMID: 33627092; PMCID: PMC7903784.
  • Rückher J, Lobitz J, Follmann M, Derenz S, Schmidt S, Mensah J, Wesselmann S. Guideline-Based Quality Indicators for Kidney and Bladder Cancer in Germany: Development and Implementation. Urol Int. 2021 Aug 12:1-8. doi: 10.1159/000517893. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34384078.
  • Follmann M, Eigentler T, Adam H, Wenzel G, Langer T, Wesselmann S. Quality assurance in melanoma care: guideline-based quality indicators for melanoma – implementation, evaluation and update process. J Dtsch Dermatol Ges. 2020 Aug;18(8):848-857. doi: 10.1111/ddg.14149. Epub 2020 Jun 23. PMID: 32578392.
  • Artis KA, Dweik RA, Patel B, Weiss CH, Wilson KC, Gagliardi AR, Huckson S, Nothacker M, Adhikari NKJ, Kajdacsy-Balla Amaral AC, Barbash IJ, Carlos WG, Costa DK, Metersky ML, Mularski RA, Sjoding MW, Thomson CC, Hyzy RC. Performance Measure Development, Use, and Measurement of Effectiveness Using the Guideline on Mechanical Ventilation in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. An Official American Thoracic Society Workshop Report. Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2019 Dec;16(12):1463-1472. doi: 10.1513/AnnalsATS.201909-665ST. PMID: 31774323; PMCID: PMC6956829.
  • MacLean CH, Kerr EA, Qaseem A. Time Out – Charting a Path for Improving Performance Measurement. N Engl J Med. 2018 May 10;378(19):1757-1761. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp1802595. Epub 2018 Apr 18. PMID: 29668361.

Quality Indicator-Manual for oncological Guidelines
https://www.leitlinienprogramm-onkologie.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Downloads/Methodik/QIEP_OL_2021__Version_3_english_version.pdf

Selected further information on methodology of performance measures:

National Quality Forum USA – https://www.qualityforum.org/measuring_performance/measuring_performance.aspx

AAOS, USA – https://www.aaos.org/globalassets/quality-and-practice-resources/quality-performance-measures-resouces/pm_methods_v2.pdf

NICE, UK – https://www.nice.org.uk/standards-and-indicators

How to Join

Chair – Samantha Tierney

Board Liaison – Zac Munn

Traditional Medicine

About Traditional Medicine

Traditional medicine (TM) has a long history. It is the sum total of the knowledge, skill, and practices based on the theories, beliefs, and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in the maintenance of health as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental illness. (http://www.who.int/medicines/ areas/traditional/definitions/en/).

Many countries have their own traditional or indigenous forms of healing which are firmly rooted in their culture and history. Some forms of TM such as Ayurveda, Arabic & Islamic, Homeopathy, Kampo, Naturopathy, Traditional Chinese medicine and Unani medicine are popular nationally, as well as being used worldwide. TM is used not only to treat diseases, especially chronic diseases; it is also widely used in disease prevention, health promotion and health maintenance, and it has proved to be cost-effective for some governments.

There are many TM users in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and North America (WHO traditional medicine strategy: 2014-2023). In some countries, the majority of the populations continue to use TM to meet their health needs (Figure 1). To standardise clinical practice quality of TM, there is a need to develop clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) for TM. However, most guideline for TM is developed based on expert consensus and lack of systematic evidence-based methodologies.

It affects the authority of the guideline and limits the popularization and implementation of the guideline. To address these issues, there is a need to create a formal guideline development process that conforms to the characteristics of TM and follows the development methods of evidence-based CPGs. Based on this, we want to set up the TM working group to crate evidence-based CPGs development process and methodologies for TM and promote the formulation of high-quality guidelines of TM, and effectively promote TM to better serve patients.

Aims & Objectives

  • Creating formal evidence-based CPGs development process and methodologies that conforms to the characteristics of TM;
  • Developing evidence-based CPGs for TM to guide the practice of TM;
  • Establishing the alliance of TM CPGs to promote its popularisation and use in clinical practice.

Chair:
Professor Hui Li

Updating and Living Guidelines

Clinical guidelines (CGs) become outdated as new evidence is published and require a periodic reassessment to remain valid. The principles of updating CGs can be a complex, potentially resource intensive, and include three main steps: 1) identifying new evidence; 2) assessing if the new evidence has a potential impact on the current guideline; and 3) reviewing and modifying the guideline.

CGs methodological handbooks include very little guidance about how to review and update guidelines. In general, guideline programmes endorse three years as a reasonable time period to review their guidelines, however, the reality is that most groups struggle to do this every five years.

Some published research has been undertaken about the identification and assessment of new evidence (encompassed sometimes as review, surveillance or monitoring process), even though there is still important areas of uncertainty. Less attention has been paid to the review, modification, and presentation of the recommendations. This is probably due, among other reasons, to the likely assumption that it is similar to the development process. Clearly, more work is required to identify a strategy or suite of strategies that find the “sweet” spot between rigour and feasibility.  Sound methodological guidance is still not available to the guideline community.

There have also been developments around a ‘living’ guideline approach and continuous updating but there is still uncertainty around how the methods for facilitating this approach. There is a lot of opportunity to promote collaboration and learning around methods for living guidelines to maximise effort.

There are several international initiatives to improve the process of developing CGs (e.g., GRADE, AGREEII, GLIA, GIN standards or IOM standards), however, these initiatives are failing to fully address the issues pertaining to updating.

We believe that there is a need to prioritise, promote and collaborate between international guideline development and research communities to improve and standardise the updating process. Working jointly with the field of systematic reviewers will also be crucial.

Aims & Objectives

  • Provide a network, for those interested in updating CGs methodology (guideline users, developers, data scientists and other stakeholders), to exchange knowledge and experiences about methodological and operational issues
  • Develop resources for the guideline community
  • Coordinate efforts with the systematic reviews community (e.g. Cochrane Collaboration) to streamline processes
  • Provide support and training to groups undertaking or planning to undertake CGs updating projects
  • Coordinate with the related GIN working groups (e.g., Accelerated Guideline development, collaboration group)
  • Organise and promote events (e.g., workshops, oral presentations) in annual GIN conferences

Chair:
Heath White

To collaborate on future GIN publications, toolkits and manuals, join us today!