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Clinical Practice Guidelines: Home

Professional Guidelines

Clinical Practice Guidelines (U.S.)

“Clinical practice guidelines are statements that include recommendations intended to optimize patient care that are informed by a systematic review of evidence and an assessment of the benefits and harms of alternative care options.”1

There is no one, central resource to locate all professional practice guidelines,  so the following resources and professional association websites are recommended to locate US based guidelines across clinical specialties. 

The easiest way to locate a professional practice guideline might be a journal citation database since guidelines are often published in the journal literature.  They are also typically free to access and read.  For example, in PubMed limit your results to the Article type (or publication type) "Practice Guideline".

practice guidelines filter

example guideline screenshot

1.  Institute of Medicine. Graham R, Mancher M, Wolman DM, Greenfield S, Steinberg E, editor(s). Clinical practice guidelines we can trust. Washington (DC): National Academies Press; 2011. 2p. Also available at the below link, on page 4.

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