Recommendation mapping of the World Health Organization's guidelines on tuberculosis: A new approach to digitizing and presenting recommendations

Abstract

Objective: Having up-to-date health policy recommendations accessible in one location is in high demand by guideline users. We developed an easy to navigate interactive approach to organize recommendations and applied it to tuberculosis (TB) guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO).Study Design: We used a mixed-methods study design to develop a framework for recommendation mapping with seven key methodological considerations. We define a recommendation map as an online repository of recommendations from several guidelines on a condition, providing links to the underlying evidence and expert judgments that inform them, allowing users to filter and crosstabulate the search results. We engaged guideline developers, users, and health software engineers in an iterative process to elaborate the WHO eTB recommendation map.

A multistakeholder development process to prioritize and translate COVID-19 health recommendations for patients, caregivers and the public. A case study of the COVID-19 recommendation map

“…The eCOVID RecMap has identified over 4,000 actionable statements for providers, policymakers, and the public. This open access RecMap classified the 'type' of recommendation [5] and provided quality AGREE II appraisals [8]. Our multi-stakeholder team used the map to identify priority recommendations for patients and the public, while recognizing that these plain language recs may also be useful for providers and policymakers.…”

“…'Trustworthy' guidelines provide recommendations that are supported with rigorous systematic reviews with an explicit development process, a deliberative evidence to decision approach and declaration and handling of competing interests [6,8]. The eCOVID-19 Re-cMap project has identified more than 4,000 COVID-19relevant actionable statements [5,9]. These statements include recommendations, good practice statements, additional guidance, and implementation considerations, tools and tips [5].…”

“…The eCOVID-19 Re-cMap project has identified more than 4,000 COVID-19relevant actionable statements [5,9]. These statements include recommendations, good practice statements, additional guidance, and implementation considerations, tools and tips [5]. Most statements have targeted health professionals as the end user.…”

“…Plain language summaries are defined as easy-to-read, balanced statements that are derived from scientific research or guidelines [5]. The Campbell and Cochrane Collaborations have developed and instituted plain language summaries to effectively summarize the results of systematic reviews.…”

Quality assessment of clinical practice guidelines for neonatal sepsis using the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation (AGREE) II Instrument: A systematic review of neonatal guidelines

“…We recommend including the AGREE II criteria in the capacity building of clinicians to guide their decisions in selecting high-quality and evidence-based CPGs for use in their daily practice through evidence scouting and searching for similar published AGREE II assessments of CPGs in their needed neonatology health topic. Furthermore, we recommend building a recommendation map (or RecMap) for high-priority health topics or, if possible, for all published neonatology CPGs similar to RecMap initiative for COVID-19 CPGs and for tuberculosis CPGs to increase the accessibility of pre-appraised and living specialized CPGs by the professionals, parents, carers, and the public (48,49).…”