BACKGROUND American College of Chest Physicians' (CHEST) new Living Guidelines Model will not only provide clinicians with guidance based on the most clinically relevant and current science but will also allow expert-informed guidance to fill in any gaps in the existing evidence. These guidance documents will be updated, as necessary, using one or more of three processes: (1) evidence-based gui...

BACKGROUND The complexity and quality requirements for the development of clinical practice guidelines steadily increase. Internet technologies support this process by optimizing the development process. OBJECTIVE The aim of this internet based solution was to facilitate the development of clinical practice guidelines. METHODS An internet portal was developed allowing for a shared workplace...

BACKGROUND Despite growing recognition that psychosocial care is an essential component of comprehensive cancer care, evidence suggests many patients with cancer do not receive needed psychosocial care. METHODS Four areas were identified as potentially increasing the number of patients with cancer who receive needed psychosocial care: (1) formulating care standards, (2) issuing clinical pract...

PRESTIGE is a project for applying telematics to assist the dissemination and application of clinical practice guidelines and protocols. Previous publications have described PRESTIGE's technical approach, including the use of a generic model for representing the knowledge content of clinical guidelines. This approach offers the possibility of 'plug-and-play' electronic distribution of clinical ...

On behalf of the American Urological Association, Linthicum, MD, USA Department of Urology, College of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA On behalf of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, London, UK; Department of Urology, Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, UK On behalf of Société Internationale d’Urologie, Montreal, Canada; Department of Urologic Su...

Meta-analysis is becoming more popular in the biomedical literature and of increasing importance to clinicians, policy makers, funding bodies, and researchers for synthesizing practice guidelines, grant justification, and making policy decisions. Meta-analysis involves a quantitative analysis of multiple study outcomes to reach conclusions regarding an intervention. Often these studies are diff...

Background: Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is a current practice in medicine to produce clinical practice guidelines from well-designed, randomized, controlled trials. We studied knowledge, attitude, and practice of EBM of neurologists who participated in the Iranian congress of neurology. Methods: A self-administered anonymous questionnaire was distributed and filled by neurologists. Results: A...

The necropsy is a professional activity which requires extensive knowledge and technical ability in order to identify and interpret important findings within a wide range of clinical contexts. The central role of the medicolegal necropsy in the investigation of death necessitates the highest possible standards of practice. Similarly, the clinical necropsy represents one of the few situations wh...

The American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) is a nonprofit professional society whose primary purposes are to advance the science, education and professional practice of medical physics. The AAPM has more than 8,000 members and is the principal organization of medical physicists in the United States.The AAPM will periodically define new practice guidelines for medical physics prac...

The “Point of Care” section answers everyday clinical questions by providing practical information that aims to be useful at the point of patient care. The responses reflect the opinions of the contributors and do not purport to set forth standards of care or clinical practice guidelines. Readers are encouraged to do more reading on the topics covered. If you would like to contribute to this se...