Individualized Clinical Practice Guidelines

The Next Step in the Evidence-based Health Care Evolution?

Brietzke, Scott E. MD, MPH

¹Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland, USA

Scott E. Brietzke, MD, MPH, Dept. of Otolaryngology, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, 8901 Wisconsin Ave. Bethesda, MD 20889, USA. Email: [email protected]

Received November 11, 2013

Received in revised form November 19, 2013

Accepted December 3, 2013

Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery 150(3):p 342-345, March 2014. | DOI: 10.1177/0194599813517864

Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) are playing an increasing role in the evolution of evidence-based health care. CPGs involve a process in which the best evidence in translated into best practice principles that are then applied on a wide range of patients. Although there are clear benefits in terms of simplicity, applying broad recommendations on a diverse group of patients can lead to wide variations in outcomes on an individual patient level. The individualized guideline (IG) is an approach that builds on the concept of the CPG by specifying treatment recommendation based on important individual baseline characteristics. The IG approach could potentially lead to superior outcomes but necessitates a substantial increase in complexity to the CPG development process.