FAQ
My NGC Personalization
What features are available for "My NGC" personalization?
- My Recent Searches: Terms you have recently searched appear on the home page directly below the main search box. Your three most recent searches are displayed ("View all…" will display up to 10 recent searches); clicking the term will run the search and display up-to-date results for that term (no account creation required).
- My Recently Viewed Guideline Summaries: Guideline summaries you have recently viewed appear on the home page. Your five most recently viewed summaries are displayed; clicking a title will display the summary page (no account creation required).
- My Favorite Organizations: You can save an organization as a "favorite." There is no limit to the number of organizations you can save to favorites. You will have the option to receive weekly e-mail alerts when a new summary or summaries associated with that organization have been published or if one or more summaries associated with that organization have been updated or withdrawn from the site.
How to save an organization as a favorite: In the By Organization browse, clicking on the star next to the organization's name will cause a pop-up window to appear allowing you to save the organization as a "favorite." Similarly, if you browse directly to an organization, you can save it as a "favorite" by clicking "Save to Favorites" in the top right corner of the organization results page (account creation required).
- Topic Alerts: You can sign up for e-mail alerts on topics of interest. The NGC topics have been chosen based on resources such as Healthy People 2020 and relevant content in the NGC database. An alert will be sent when a summary or summaries, associated with that topic, have been published, updated, or withdrawn.
- Expert Commentary Alerts: You can sign up to receive an alert when a new expert commentary is published to the NGC site.
- My E-mail Alerts: Defined by favorite content, you can receive weekly e-mail alerts when your favorite content is published, updated, or withdrawn (account creation required). Refer to "What types of custom e-mail alerts are available and how can I sign up?" below for further information.
How can I sign up for a free account?
You can create an account directly from the home page, by clicking the My NGC button in the left navigation, or by clicking the Sign in link in the top right corner of the site. To create an account, enter an e-mail address (required), password (required), password confirmation (required), first name (optional), and last name (optional).
What types of custom e-mail alerts are available and how can I sign up?
Every Monday, you will receive of digest of personalized content. Note: You will not receive an e-mail unless there are changes to your favorite content.
Alerts are available on any or all of the following:
- How to sign up for Favorite Guideline/Measure Summary Alerts: Favorite summary alerts are accessible from your My NGC Dashboard (account creation required). You may also sign-up to receive favorite summary alerts when you save a summary to your favorites via the pop-up window. An alert will be sent when your favorite summary or summaries have been updated or withdrawn from the site.
- How to sign up for Favorite Organization Alerts: Favorite organization alerts are accessible from your My NGC Dashboard (account creation required). You may also sign-up to receive Favorite Organization alerts when you save an organization to your favorites via the pop-up window. An alert will be sent when a new summary or summaries associated with that organization have been published or if one or more summaries associated with that organization have been updated or withdrawn.
- How to sign up for Topic Alerts: Topic alerts are accessible from your My NGC Dashboard (account creation required). By clicking "Add Topic Alerts" a pop-up window will appear with a list of available topics. A "Create Topic E-Mail Alerts" button is also accessible from the By Topic browse. An alert will be sent when a summary or summaries, associated with a topic, have been published, updated, or withdrawn.
- How to sign up for Expert Commentary Alerts: Expert Commentary alerts are accessible from your My NGC Dashboard (account creation required). A "Create Expert Commentary E-Mail Alerts" button is also accessible from the Expert Commentaries landing page. An alert will be sent when a new Expert Commentary is published to the site.
How often are My NGC e-mail alerts issued?
E-mail alerts are issued weekly on Monday. Note: You will not receive a My NGC e-mail alert unless there are changes to your favorite content. Personal alerts will not affect the NGC/NQMC weekly e-mail (you will continue to receive this e-mail separately every Monday if you have subscribed).
How can I opt out of the passive personalization (My Recent Searches and My Recently Viewed Summaries) features?
In order to prevent recent searches and recently viewed summaries from being tracked, you must disable cookies in your Web browser. In Internet Explorer 9, click on Tools, then Internet Options, and then click on the Privacy tab. Next, click on the Advanced button and select the "Override automatic cookie handling" option. Next, block first-party cookies, and click OK. Clear your internet browser cache, close all open browsers, and return to the NGC home page.
Guideline Summaries
Why don't all of the summaries include references supporting the recommendations?
NGC uses a systematic approach to decide when it is appropriate to include author, year citations in the Major Recommendations field and full citations in the References Supporting the Recommendations field. Two criteria drive the decision-making process: (1) the recommendations are explicitly stated, and (2) those explicit statements are referenced. The first criterion means that the recommendations in the guideline document are easily identified, stand-alone, action-oriented statements. Explicit recommendation statements are not interspersed among rationale in the guideline document. Rationale for the recommendations may be provided in sections before or after the actual recommendations but not within the same body of content as the recommendations. The second criterion means that the reference(s) supporting the explicit recommendation is (are) provided at the end of the statement. References cited in the rationale for the recommendation are not captured.
What are UMLS concepts, and how are they used on NGC?
The U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) has developed the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) to "facilitate the development of computer systems that behave as if they "understand" the meaning of the language of biomedicine and health. The UMLS consists of three knowledge sources, the Metathesaurus, the Semantic Network, and the Specialist Lexicon, as well as computer tools to help developers integrate the information from these sources.
The Metathesaurus is a collection of more than 100 controlled vocabularies, thesauri, and code sets linked together via high-level semantic concepts. NGC's master's level indexers apply terms from selected UMLS vocabularies to each guideline summary, expert commentary, and guideline synthesis to facilitate searching and browsing and to create relationships between similar documents. These vocabularies are:
- Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS)
- International Classification of Diseases – Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM)
- Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
- Physician Data Query (PDQ)
- Standard Product Nomenclature (SPN)
- Systemized Nomenclature of Medicine (Clinical Terms) (SNOMED CT)
- UMLS Metathesaurus (MTH)
- Universal Medical Device Nomenclature System (UMDNS)
Guideline Submissions, Inclusion Criteria, Copyright Permission
Are there copyright restrictions on the information accessed through the NGC Web site at www.guideline.gov?
There are no copyright restrictions that prevent users from copying and/or distributing content found on NGC, provided that all content is appropriately identified. NGC's content (i.e., guideline summaries, guideline syntheses, and expert commentaries) is available for public use, and we encourage the distribution of our content, particularly for educational purposes. NGC content may not be used for commercial and/or product endorsement purposes.
Although most of NGC's content is free of restrictions, exceptions occur where individual guideline developers have requested otherwise. Refer to the Copyright Statement field at the end of each summary to determine if whether such restrictions apply and if users need to contact the guideline developer.
NGC seeks and receives permission from guideline developers to include summaries of the original full-text guidelines that appear at www.guideline.gov. NGC does not have the authority to grant copyright clearance for the original full-text guidelines upon which the summaries are based. If you are interested in using/distributing the original full-text guideline, you must contact the guideline developer.
What are examples of guideline documentation submitted to NGC?
Guideline developers submit a variety of documents to NGC including the following:
- Guideline documents/recommendations statements (published journal articles, unpublished documents, documents published electronically)
- Technical manuals describing the developer's process for guideline development
- Documents detailing the specific methodology for the guideline (evidence syntheses, systematic reviews, assessment reports)
- Patient resources (fact sheets, patient versions of guideline recommendations, pamphlets/brochures)
- Tools to assist in implementation (quick reference guides, PDA downloads, pocket guides, algorithms, order sets, chart documentation, slide sets, etc.)
- Continuing Medical Education (CME) material
- Other companion documents (background material, costing statements)
Publication Activity
Searching/Browsing
How can I find guidelines on a specific topic?
You can type your search term in the search box accessible in the masthead of all NGC Web pages to quickly search the database. You can also browse the NGC database by Topic (Disease/Condition, Treatment/Intervention, Health Services Administration) or Organization.
The About Search page contains useful tips on how to search the NGC database for guidelines of interest. You can also use Advanced Search to perform refined searches of the NGC database. This feature allows you to filter your search by one or more guideline attributes (e.g., Clinical Specialty, Intended Users, Guideline Category).
Technical Questions
Are guideline summaries available in a downloadable format?
Each guideline summary provides a printable view via the Print link and several download types: PDF (download the free Adobe Reader ), Word (compatible with Word 1997 and higher), HTML, and XML. A citation for individual guideline summaries can also be downloaded into EndNote by clicking on the Citation Manager link.
Miscellaneous
What is the difference between a "clinical guideline," "practice parameter," and "standard"?
Evidence-based clinical guidance documents are heterogeneous, as is the terminology utilized to describe and/or label them. The phrases "guideline," "protocol," "practice parameter," "pathway," "standard," etc., are used in many different contexts by different guideline developers.
NGC's Inclusion Criteria rely on the Institute of Medicine (IOM) definition of clinical practice guideline:
Clinical practice guidelines are systematically developed statements to assist practitioner and patient decisions about appropriate health care for specific clinical circumstances. Institute of Medicine. (1990). Clinical Practice Guidelines: Directions for a New Program, M.J. Field and K.N. Lohr (eds.) Washington, DC: National Academy Press. page 38.
Any document meeting NGC's Inclusion Criteria is eligible for inclusion, regardless of how it is labeled.
Interested users may want to search NGC's Annotated Bibliographies for additional information. This feature allows users to search for publications and resources about guidelines.
How do I obtain the original full-text guideline upon which the NGC guideline summary is based?
For guidelines for which NGC has received the necessary permissions from the guideline developer, links are provided from the NGC summary to the full-text document at the developer's Web site. Users can find this link by referring to the "Related Content" tab at the top of each summary or by going to the Guideline Availability field that appears near the end of each summary. NGC is unable to fulfill orders for printed copies of the original full-text document.
How do I cite the information found at the NGC Web site (e.g., a guideline summary, guideline synthesis, or expert commentary)?
The suggested citation format for a Guideline Summary:
- National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC). Guideline summary: [insert title of summary]. In: National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) [Web site]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ); [cited YYYY Mon DD]. Available: http://www.guideline.gov.
Example: National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC). Guideline summary: Screening for breast cancer. In: National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) [Web site]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ); [cited 2010 Jul 21]. Available: http://www.guideline.gov.
The suggested citation format for a Guideline Synthesis:
- National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC). Guideline synthesis: [insert title of synthesis]. In: National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) [Web site]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ); [cited YYYY Mon DD]. Available: http://www.guideline.gov.
Example: National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC). Guideline synthesis: Screening for breast cancer. In: National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) [Web site]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ); [cited 2010 May 7]. Available: http://www.guideline.gov.
If you are citing the original guideline upon which the summary or synthesis is based, please refer to the Source field included in each guideline summary or the sources listed under the Guidelines Being Compared section found at the top of each guideline synthesis.
The suggested citation format for an Expert Commentary:
- Author [insert Commentary author]. Commentary title. In: National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) [Web site]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ); [cited YYYY Mon DD]. Available: http://www.guideline.gov.
Example: Wachter RM. Is the Measurement Mandate Diverting the Patient Safety Revolution? In: National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) [Web site]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ); [cited 2009 Nov 8]. Available: http://www.guideline.gov.