Developing and Deploying Clinical Practice Guidelines



Next week, we are teaming up with the Canadian College of Healthcare Leaders @CCHL_CCLS on a tweetchat that will explore clinical practice guidelines in a pandemic. There are two aspects that we plan to discuss.
First, we will be discussing clinical practice guidelines themselves. What are these? According to the American Academy of Family Physicians ( AAFP ), clinical practice guidelines or CPGs (we love our acronyms in healthcare don’t we?) are “statements that include recommendations intended to optimize patient care. They are informed by a systematic review of evidence, and an assessment of the benefits and harms of alternative care options. CPGs should follow a sound, transparent methodology to translate best evidence into clinical practice for improved patient outcomes. Additionally, evidence-based CPGs are a key aspect of patient-centered care.” As such, CPGs take time to develop and are challenging to disseminate/implement.
There is also the issue of consistency. In Canada alone there are over 1,800 CPGs. You can search them here: https://joulecma.ca/cpg/homepage
Second, we will dive into the question of how we can/should we take the lessons learned from past outbreaks like H1N1 and apply them in developing CPGs.
Joining @CCHL_CCLS in leading the discussion will be the two authors of the article that this week’s chat is based on: Thilina Bandara, PhD @Thilina_B and Dr. Cory Neudorf, MD @CoryNeudorf. *Please note that @CCHL_CCLS has kindly made the published article from Bandara and Neudorf freely available to HCLDR for a limited time. The link is below.

Public health physician perspectives on developing and deploying clinical practice guidelines
by Thilina Bandara, PhD, and Dr. Cory Neudorf, MD
Like heart attacks are to cardiologists, pandemics require the intuition and leadership of the public health and preventative medicine physicians to be managed. The public health field has learned from the evergreen threat of infectious disease throughout Canada’s history, from the outbreaks of cholera, smallpox and typhoid during the inception of the country, to today’s COVID-19 crises. One of the formative recent outbreaks that has helped prepare public health for COVID-19 was the H1N1 influenza pandemic of 2009.
While each outbreak is unique, there are commonalities between them that can help improve the public health system. Our article highlights seven key lessons that local Canadian public health physicians learned as a result of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. Here we will outline some broad themes from our inquiry.
1. Public health in Canada and the US is highly decentralized
An effective model of collaboration and communication must be an ongoing project in a highly decentralized system.
Between federal, provincial/state, and local public health authorities, there are a lot of chances for communication gaps and inefficient...

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