ECRI practice guidelines to replace AHRQ clearinghouse

The ECRI Institute is looking to pick up the slack from the now-defunct National Guideline Clearinghouse by continuing to offer providers evidence-based clinical practice guidelines.

Funding cuts to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality forced AHRQ to shutter the National Guideline Clearinghouse in July.

While ECRI developed and maintained the National Guideline Clearinghouse for 20 years, it has to start from scratch in order to fill the gap.

In fact, ECRI is building a new set of guidelines, says Karen Schoelles, MD, director of the ECRI Guidelines Trust and ECRI Institute-Penn Medicine Evidence-based Practice Center.

This effort includes reaching out to guideline developers, medical specialty societies and other healthcare organizations for permission to include their guidelines.

“It’s an incredible amount of work,” Schoelles adds. “That’s why we are launching with an initial set of Guideline Briefs and TRUST scorecards, and will be adding new content continuously as it becomes available.”

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“Trustworthy clinical practice guidelines are essential to medical professionals who need to deliver safe and effective patient care,” says Marcus Schabacker, MD, president and CEO at ECRI. “Since ECRI’s mission is to advance effective, evidence-based healthcare globally, we are taking the lead to provide free access to trusted guideline resources.”

Early features coming in 2019 will include advanced search capability, an improved user interface, as well as support for guideline implementation and decision-making.

Access to the new guidelines website will be free but registration will be required. More information is available here.