Guidelines for Guidelines

Guidelines for the development of guidelines. PAHO and WHO issue guidelines intended to improve the development of guidelines for improving various aspects of health care and health outcomes focusing on equity and optimal resource utilization. In developing guidelines it is essential that recommendations and actions be informed by the best available research evidence. Increasingly, governments, and professional and consumer organizations are demanding a more rigorous process to ensure Evidence-informed guideline development.

Workshops

Guatemala, March 3-4, 2012. With the support of PAHO’s Guatemala office, a meeting on the development of guidelines using the GRADE methodology was held. The workshop was attended by participants from Guatemala and Ecuador. Ludovic Reveiz, from PAHO WDC and Ana Elena Chevez supported the workshop through their organization and coordination of the event. Hernando Gaitan and Carlos Grilo, from the network of collaborating centers in the Iberoamerican Center of the Cochrane Collaboration, were the workshop facilitators.

Geneva: Ludovic Reveiz traveled to Geneva in order to participate in the meeting of experts on patient security and primary care. The main objective of the meeting were to evaluate and prioritize gaps in the knowledge base related to patient security in primary care and to plan future actions.

Guidelines for Technical Guidelines
With the support of PAHO (Ludovic Reveiz), the Ministry of Health of Chile organized a workshop on the GRADE methodology for assessing the quality of the evidence and formulation of recommendations in the preparation of practice guidelines. The workshop was offered in Santiago de Chile the days 15 - 16 November 2011 and was attended by 27 participants from the Ministry of Health. The workshop was facilitated by Dr. Holger Schünemman of the McMaster Forum and Dr. Hernando Gaitan of the Research Institute of the National University of Colombia. Dra. María Francisca Rodriguez Camus, Technology Secretary of AUGE, commented “the workshop was fantastic—the methodology good and interesting”. The Chilean Ministry is assessing how best to develop a strategic plan for implementation of the methodology and has requested support from the Research team.
Equator Network
Three Latin American journals, Revista Chilena de Pediatría,Revista Peruana de Medicina Experimental y Salud Pública y Acta Médica Dominicana have joined PAHO and Equator in their effort to improve research reporting in Latin America and the Caribbean. These journals are now referring their authors to the internationally approved reporting guidelines displayed on the Equator site to help them better report health studies. See more in Equator’s newsletters, available in English and Spanish.
Information resources
WHO Guidelines Review Committee
WHO Handbook for guideline development [2012]
PAHO/WHO Training Workshop on Guideline Development Methods