On July 16, 2018, the National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC or guideline.gov) website will be taken down due to loss of federal funding through the AHRQ (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality). For years, the National Guideline Clearinghouse has made it incredibly easy to locate the evidence-based, clinical practice guidelines that are produced by numerous healthcare agencies and organizations throughout the United States and the world. The guideline summaries, along with meticulous inclusion and updating criteria, made this resource invaluable to the medical community.
Make no mistake, the clinical practice guidelines will still be out there, just not as easy to locate or as elegantly displayed. Here are some tips for easily locating guidelines in the future.
Use the “Guideline” filter in PubMed/Medline
Since most guidelines are also published in journals, they are searchable in PubMed. You can limit any PubMed search to only display guidelines in two ways. One way, is to search for the MeSH term: “Guideline” [Publication Type], then *AND* it to your search results. Another way is to use the “Guideline” Article Type filter that is found on the left hand side of every PubMed results page. “Guideline” is not a default option, but you can include it by clicking on Customize, check Guideline from the pop-up list, select Show, and viola – it’s now a filter you can apply!
Browse Guidelines within ClinicalKey
ClinicalKey has a helpful guidelines search. From the CK homepage, choose “Guidelines” from the Browse options. From the Guidelines page you can filter by medical specialty, authoring organization, or search for a word in the title of the guideline.
Links in Sladen’s Subject Guides
Many of our librarian-curated Subject Guides contain links to subject-specific guidelines. Often these links are located on the “Internet Resources” tab and link directly to a professional association’s guideline webpage.
Go Directly to the Source
Medical academies and associations usually have a place on their website for their official clinical practice guidelines. Depending on the site, you might have to hunt around a little, but they can often be found under the Education or Clinical Resources headings. Many national organizations make their guidelines freely accessible, but if you run into problems getting full-text, please contact Sladen.
Mobile Apps
Sladen’s Mobile Guide has a page with guideline apps http://henryford.libguides.com/mobile/guidelines. Currently, only a limited number of apps are available, however important groups are represented including AHA, ACP, ASCO, and others.
The National Guideline Clearinghouse website states that other organizations have shown interest in taking over the work of the website, but no definite plans are in place for it's continuation. We will keep you informed if a guideline website similar to NGC comes along in the future.
Please contact Sladen if you have any questions or recommendations.
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