This appeared last week:
New ‘living’ clinical guidelines to provide up-to-the-minute coronavirus recommendations
GPs and other healthcare workers will now have access to a single source of trusted clinical advice at the click of a button.
06 Apr 2020
The world-first guideline recommendations – Caring for people with COVID-19: Supporting Australia’s healthcare professionals with continually updated, evidence-based clinical guidelines – have been developed by the National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce (the taskforce) comprised of experts from Australia’s peak health bodies, including the RACGP.
Associate Professor Julian Elliott, Head of Clinical Research in the Department of Infectious Diseases at Alfred Hospital and Monash University, and Senior Research Fellow at Cochrane Australia, is Chair of the taskforce.
He told newsGP there is urgent need to arm Australia’s healthcare professionals with evidence-based guidance amid the current pandemic.
‘What I’m hearing from a lot of my clinical colleagues is that there’s just an overwhelming amount of information and it’s very difficult for people to keep up even in the best of times, let alone how busy everyone is now,’ Associate Professor Elliott said.
‘There’s also a sense that there’s a lot of conflicting messages and I think certainly going forward there was a risk that we would have different specialist societies and different groups putting out somewhat different statements and positions.
‘The primary objective of the taskforce is to give clinicians of all types a single source of truth, one place they can go to where they know that they are the national guidelines, that they’re trustworthy, they’ve got the support of all the peak clinical groups and also that they’re up to date with the latest research.’
The guidelines are unique in that they are classed as ‘living’. Where traditional guidelines are developed every four to five years, these will be updated with new research in near real-time to give clinicians across primary, acute and critical care settings reliable, up-to-the minute recommendations throughout the health crisis.
Clinicians are encouraged to submit any questions or suggestions they have regarding clinical care.
‘One of the real advantages of what we call a living evidence model is that it’s dynamic. So we do have the opportunity to respond to the key questions and concerns of clinicians,’ Associate Professor Elliott said.
‘We want to hear what their key clinical questions are, their concerns, fears, worries.’
The taskforce, convened by the Australian Living Evidence Consortium based at Cochrane Australia at Monash University, will identify and summarise emerging national and international research and data using evidence surveillance and automation technologies. This evidence will then be fed to guideline panels.
The results will be delivered into the hands of clinicians through a mobile web app.
The Federal Government has backed the project with $1.5 million from the Medical Research Future Fund, together with contributions from the Victorian Government, the Ian Potter Foundation and the Walter Cottman Endowment Fund managed by Equity Trustees.
Associate Professor Mark Morgan, Chair of the RACGP Expert Committee – Quality Care (REC–QC), is involved in the taskforce, chairing a panel with a focus on mild COVID-19, which will be of particular interest to GPs. However, as the crisis continues to unfold, he believes all guidelines are going to be relevant.
‘I suspect general practice will also be involved in looking after people with moderate or even severe COVID-19, particularly those people that look after patients in community hospitals or sadly when we start providing palliative care,’ he told newsGP.
‘Especially if hospitals were to become overwhelmed, then the role of GPs will rapidly increase.’
The first set of recommendations, currently available, cover:
Associate Professor Julian Elliott, Head of Clinical Research in the Department of Infectious Diseases at Alfred Hospital and Monash University, and Senior Research Fellow at Cochrane Australia, is Chair of the taskforce.
He told newsGP there is urgent need to arm Australia’s healthcare professionals with evidence-based guidance amid the current pandemic.
‘What I’m hearing from a lot of my clinical colleagues is that there’s just an overwhelming amount of information and it’s very difficult for people to keep up even in the best of times, let alone how busy everyone is now,’ Associate Professor Elliott said.
‘There’s also a sense that there’s a lot of conflicting messages and I think certainly going forward there was a risk that we would have different specialist societies and different groups putting out somewhat different statements and positions.
‘The primary objective of the taskforce is to give clinicians of all types a single source of truth, one place they can go to where they know that they are the national guidelines, that they’re trustworthy, they’ve got the support of all the peak clinical groups and also that they’re up to date with the latest research.’
The guidelines are unique in that they are classed as ‘living’. Where traditional guidelines are developed every four to five years, these will be updated with new research in near real-time to give clinicians across primary, acute and critical care settings reliable, up-to-the minute recommendations throughout the health crisis.
Clinicians are encouraged to submit any questions or suggestions they have regarding clinical care.
‘One of the real advantages of what we call a living evidence model is that it’s dynamic. So we do have the opportunity to respond to the key questions and concerns of clinicians,’ Associate Professor Elliott said.
‘We want to hear what their key clinical questions are, their concerns, fears, worries.’
The taskforce, convened by the Australian Living Evidence Consortium based at Cochrane Australia at Monash University, will identify and summarise emerging national and international research and data using evidence surveillance and automation technologies. This evidence will then be fed to guideline panels.
The results will be delivered into the hands of clinicians through a mobile web app.
The Federal Government has backed the project with $1.5 million from the Medical Research Future Fund, together with contributions from the Victorian Government, the Ian Potter Foundation and the Walter Cottman Endowment Fund managed by Equity Trustees.
Associate Professor Mark Morgan, Chair of the RACGP Expert Committee – Quality Care (REC–QC), is involved in the taskforce, chairing a panel with a focus on mild COVID-19, which will be of particular interest to GPs. However, as the crisis continues to unfold, he believes all guidelines are going to be relevant.
‘I suspect general practice will also be involved in looking after people with moderate or even severe COVID-19, particularly those people that look after patients in community hospitals or sadly when we start providing palliative care,’ he told newsGP.
‘Especially if hospitals were to become overwhelmed, then the role of GPs will rapidly increase.’
The first set of recommendations, currently available, cover:
- definitions of disease severity
- monitoring and markers of clinical deterioration
- antivirals and other disease-modifying treatments
- respiratory support.
Clinicians also have access to flowcharts to assist with decision-making. The first two cover management of patients with moderate to severe, and severe to critical COVID-19.
‘This has just come together literally in the last three weeks, and the guidance that we have available now on our website is just the start,’ Associate Professor Elliott said.
……
The RACGP has more information on coronavirus available on its website.
‘This has just come together literally in the last three weeks, and the guidance that we have available now on our website is just the start,’ Associate Professor Elliott said.
……
The RACGP has more information on coronavirus available on its website.
More here:
What an inevitable but great idea to have some absolutely authoritative and up to date guidelines available on line when we are confronting a virus with which we all have little experience and about which there are inevitably all sorts of questions.
This is the direct link:
We can hope to see it built out as soon as possible.
David.
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