Patient temperature: an introduction to the clinical guideline for the prevention of unplanned perioperative hypothermia.

As early as 1989, the legislation that created the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (now known as the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality) called for the development, periodic review, and update of clinically relevant guidelines. These guidelines could assist physicians, educators, and health care practitioners in determining how diseases, disorders, and other health conditions could effectively be prevented, diagnosed, treated and managed clinically. As the process for developing clinical practice guidelines has evolved, professional groups of health care practitioners have become involved in identifying health conditions affecting select patient populations and examining the ways in which different aspects of prevention, diagnosis, treatment, management, and the care process fit together.