Background: Recent revised standards from the Institute of Medicine for clinical practice guidelines and reviews of comparative effectiveness research have been joined by new challenges in public dissemination. Evidence-based Guidelines Affecting Policy, Practice and Stakeholders (E-GAPPS), a two day conference, will address all phases of guideline planning and development through adoption and implementation. It will engage a broad range of stakeholders in shared perspectives and familiarize them with relevant concepts and skills. Innovation/Approach: E-GAPPS has been designed by a planning committee (PC) assembled by Guidelines International Network North America and the New York Academy of Medicine Section on Evidence Based Health Care. The PC includes representation from health policy, methodology, patient and consumer advocacy, education, publishing, journalism, health care delivery, informatics and decision support, implementation science, and organized medicine. The conference design addresses 4 themes: guidelines, policy and practice;making guidelines trustworthy;engagement of journalists, consumers, patients, practitioners and disease advocates;and, adaptation, implementation and tracking of effectiveness. Within each theme, plenary and breakout sessions will foster interactive dialogue among presenters and between presenters and conference attendees. Journalists will be included in the program and invited to attend as participants. Conference faculty are drawn from government, public and private policy circles, health care providers, advocacy groups, insurers and academia. It includes nationally and internationally recognized experts in clinical epidemiology and evidence-based methodology, decision support, knowledge translation research and guideline adaptation, education, and patient engagement in guideline development. Breakout topics include balancing policy and payment against clinical care priorities in guideline development, making guidelines actionable, incorporating consumers and patients, enhancing engagement of press and media, incorporating guideline awareness into undergraduate and continuing education, adapting and implementing guidelines, collaboration between guideline developers, and utilizing computerized decision support. E-GAPPS will be evaluated quantitatively using post-conference and follow-up surveys of faculty and audience participants, and qualitatively by means of post conference focus groups of attendees. Impact: The E-GAPPS conference will be widely disseminated both prior to and after the event, utilizing networks available to its co- sponsors, PC members, and faculty. The journal Health Affairs is committed to entertaining submissions emerging from the conference. Keynote and plenary presentations will be videotaped and posted open access on the websites of the conference sponsors. Intensity of interaction and participation on the part of conference attendees should further contribute to achievement of lasting impact on evidence-based clinical guideline development, dissemination and uptake, and, as a result, on the quality and safety of patient care.
Recently, new standards for scientifically sound clinical guidelines used by practitioners and policy makers to inform their decisions and recommendations, have been announced. Evidence-based Guidelines Affecting Policy, Practice and Stakeholders (E-GAPPS), an intensive 2 day conference, will have impact on how such guidelines may be developed, disseminated, adopted and implemented in line with those standards and in a fashion that will maximize the quality and safety of clinical care and the health of the public. The program and design will create dialogue and exchange of perspectives between practitioners, patients, consumers, health care managers, journalists and an outstanding faculty in a format that maximizes interaction. E-GAPPS should have important positive effect on improving the quality, usefulness and effectiveness of scientifically informed clinical guidelines in improving the care of individual patients.
