National Guideline Clearinghouse™ Triples Number of Guidelines

New Information from AHRQ: March 1, 2000

The National Guideline Clearinghouse™ (NGC) has more than tripled in size since its launch just over one year ago and now offers instant access to almost 700 evidence-based clinical practice guidelines, related summaries, and other materials. With over 1 million visitor sessions and 17 million hits to date, the NGC has proven to be a valuable resource for physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals. The NGC is located on the Internet at http://www.guideline.gov.

Developed by AHRQ (formerly the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research), in partnership with the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Association of Health Plans (AAHP), the NGC is an Internet-based resource that enables health care professionals to compare clinical recommendations more quickly than ever before. Updated continually, the NGC contains guidelines submitted by 125 health care organizations, associations, medical societies, and Federal agencies. The site provides an easily accessible and comprehensive source of clinical guidelines, saving users hours of researching to find similar information.

The NGC provides comprehensive information through both simple and detailed search options, along with the ability to browse by disease, by treatment/intervention, or by the name of the submitting organization. In addition, the NGC database offers a feature that allows the user to create tabular comparisons of guideline summaries. It also contains syntheses of guidelines covering similar topics, noting areas of agreement and disagreement. Additionally, users can instantly find out what has been recently added to the NGC by clicking on the "What's New" feature icon.

AHRQ encourages organizations to submit guidelines for inclusion in the NGC. The inclusion criteria, as well as information on how submit guidelines, are available on the site by clicking on "About NGC" in the upper right hand corner of each Web page.

Editor's Note: For further information on the NGC, including information on submitting guidelines for the site, contact Jean Slutsky, NGC Project Officer, at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, (301) 427-1600, or info@guideline.gov.

For more information, please contact AHRQ Public Affairs, (301) 427-1364.

Internet Citation:

National Guideline Clearinghouse™ Triples Number of Guidelines. New Information from AHRQ, March 1, 2000. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/news/press/pr2000/ngc3pr.htm