The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) of the US Department of Health and Human Services has awarded ECRI Institute a new contract to continue to operate, maintain, and enhance the AHRQ National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) and National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC). Combined, both websites receive more than 3.4 million visits annually.
The National Guideline Clearinghouse and National Quality Measures Clearinghouse are publicly accessible, searchable databases of summaries of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines and healthcare quality measures, measure sets, and related information. The information is presented in a standardized format that facilitates quick retrieval and comparison among guidelines and quality measures on similar topics.
The goal of NGC and NQMC is to provide physicians and clinicians, healthcare providers and payers, integrated delivery systems, and others an easy way to obtain objective, detailed information on clinical practice guidelines and quality measures, and to further their dissemination, implementation, and use in making informed healthcare decisions.
ECRI Institute will work with AHRQ to implement more rigorous inclusion criteria for both NGC and NQMC to ensure that guidelines and measures represented in the clearinghouses were developed using scientifically sound methodologies.
Additionally, AHRQ and ECRI Institute will act on the Institute of Medicine's recommendation to indicate the extent to which guidelines represented in NGC adhere to the standards for developing trustworthy guidelines.
“We are honored to continue this very important work and look forward to the challenge of implementing a higher bar for the methodology underpinning the guidelines and measures in NGC and NQMC,” said Vivian Coates, vice president of information services and health technology assessment, ECRI Institute, and project director for the ECRI Institute contract.
ECRI Institute, an independent nonprofit that researches the best approaches to patient care, has been the contractor to develop and maintain NGC since its inception in 1997, and NQMC since its beginnings in 2001. ECRI Institute will continue to collaborate with subcontractors RAND Corporation, Harvard School of Public Health, Tufts Medical Center, and The Joint Commission, along with its information technology subcontractor, Silverchair Information Systems.
ECRI Institute, AHRQ, HHS, National Quality Measures Clearinghouse, AHRQ National Guideline Clearinghouse
