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AMDA Foundation

Home arrow Vol XV, Mar `06
CPG Spotlight: What's a CPG, Anyway? PDF Print E-mail
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Vol XV, Mar `06
Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) have been created to provide healthcare professionals with a general approach to diagnosing and managing diseases based on current science.

According to Luther, Nelson, and Powell-Cope (2004), the goals of CPGs are to:

  1. Improve care processes and outcomes
  2. Decrease practice variations
  3. Optimize resource utilization
In response to a need for CPGs for elderly living in the nation's nursing homes, the American Medical Directors Association (AMDA) has developed 19 guidelines--some with toolkits--for clinical conditions such as pain and pressure ulcers. However, research shows that adoption of evidenced-based innovation programs into medical practice has six common challenges:
  1. Gaining internal support for the program, despite differing goals of administration and clinical staff;
  2. Ensuring effective clinical leadership;
  3. Integrating with existing programs;
  4. Balancing program fidelity with facility specific circumstances;
  5. Documenting positive outcomes of the program, despite limited evaluation resources; and
  6. Maintaining the momentum of implementation in the face of tight deadlines and limited resources.
Source: Bradley, Schlesinger, Webster, Baker, and Inouye, 2004.

Although translating research into practice is challenging for medical staff, the AMDA CPG implementation manual, toolkit and training program was developed to outline a step-by-step implementation process that would addresses common challenges and facilitates CPG adoption.
 
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