Clinical practice guidelines for physicians and other healthcare professionals are carefully developed statements to assist in informed decision-making for quality patient care. Hundreds of these guidelines have been issued under the auspices of various distinguished medical organizations, and many are available in their entirety on the World Wide Web.

One cannot discuss clinical practice guidelines without mention of evidence-based medicine, as the two go hand in hand. For the past decade, evidence-based medicine has been a popular concept in the medical community. In brief, evidence-based medicine is the practice of medicine according to the best evidence, that is, informed patient care decisions are based on systematic up-to-date reviews of the best scientific evidence available, as supported by clinically relevant research. Evidence-based medicine hence provides a foundation for the development of the best quality clinical practice guidelines.

Needless to say, clinical practice guidelines issued by distinguished medical organizations can provide valuable documentation of accepted medical practice and standards of care for the medical malpractice attorney, and here are some of the best places to look for these guidelines on the World Wide Web:

National Guideline Clearinghouse, sponsored by The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) within The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the most comprehensive collection of clinical practice guidelines on the World Wide Web.

Health Services/Technology Assessment Texts [HSTAT]. Based at The National Library of Medicine, HSTAT is a free resource providing access to a variety of full-text documents for healthcare decision-making, including clinical practice guidelines.

ACP Clinical Practice Guidelines. Evidence-based guidelines intended for the use of internists, these are produced by the prestigious American College of Physicians.

CDC Recommends. Guidelines and recommendations approved by The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for the prevention and control of diseases, injuries and disabilities.

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Recognizing the woeful and widespread lack of attention to good scientific evidence in patient care decision-making, the late Archie Cochrane, British epidemiologist, got the evidence-based medicine ball rolling during the 1970's. The highly respected Cochrane Database is a result. Pay-per-view access to each full-text review is available for $25, but the informative abstracts are free to all.

CMA Infobase. Sponsored by the Canadian Medical Association, these guidelines are produced or endorsed by various distinguished Canadian medical organizations.

Besides searching at the above Websites, there are other good ways of locating clinical practice guidelines. One is to use the ever popular Google search engine. Assume that you are looking for practice guidelines for the management of atrial fibrillation. Go to www.google.com. Enclosing phrases in quotes tells Google to look for that exact phrase. Therefore your search could be entered as follows: "atrial fibrillation" "practice guidelines" Other phrases and terms that might be effectively combined with "atrial fibrillation" are: "treatment guidelines" "clinical guidelines" "position statement" "practice parameters" protocols standards.

Perhaps you are familiar with the name of a prestigious medical society that may have issued guidelines on the subject in which you are interested. Additional searches at Google entered as "American College of Cardiology" or "American Academy of Pediatrics" lead one to the Websites of these organizations where indeed each provides links to full-text practice guidelines.

In addition, you can use The National Library of Medicine's PubMed search engine to locate clinical practice guidelines from the MEDLINE® database of quality medical journal literature. Type atrial fibrillation on the search input line (PubMed doesn't like quotes), then right under the search input line select "Limits," then "Practice Guideline" from the "Type of Article" menu.

Finally, there is the comprehensive Healthcare Standards: Official Directory and its online version, HCS Online, which contains over 38,000 citations to standards, guidelines and regulations issued by more than 1300 reputable organizations. Updated yearly, Healthcare Standards: Official Directory and HCS Online are published by the reputable ECRI, a non-profit agency dedicated to improving the quality, safety and cost-effectiveness of patient care. This Directory with online access sells for the hefty price of $650, plus shipping and handling, but it is available for perusal at most of the larger medical libraries.

May the above information lead you to the clinical practice guidelines that can help you win!

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