Clinical Practice Guidelines

Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) are being used with increasing frequency to manage the costs and quality of care provided. In June 1999 Merck Frosst sponsored a Summit on Clinical Practice Guidelines. At the Summit, international and Canadian speakers presented perspectives on CPGs. An afternoon session invited summit participants to attend workshops to explore three main questions:

• What goals should CPGs pursue?
• How can CPGs be improved?
• How can patients become meaningfully involved in the CPG development process?

Each of the workshops concluded that the primary goal of CPGs is to provide better care for patients. The following recommendation concerning the development and use of CPGs were made:

• CPGs are an educational tool and must not be used to regulate medical practice.
• CPGs must be flexible enough to meet the needs of individual patients while incorporating all aspects of care.
• The CPG process must be truly multidisciplinary, with a focus on front-line caregivers rather than academics. The process must include all parties involved in care.

Additional programs supported by Merck Frosst in collaboration with other partners can be found on www.cpgsite.com.

Please click on the links below to download CPG-related resources :

2000 Consensus Conference on CPGs (350Kb)

Debating the Future of CPGs - A report on meetings in 6 Ontario cities (119Kb)

Scripting a Future for CPGs - Proceeding from a multidisciplinary summit (171Kb)