A respected national database of 1700 clinical practice guidelines now includes 100+ guidelines on caring for patients during COVID-19. The database is available for free (registration required) and searchable by specialty, patient age, and other criteria.

The ECRI Guidelines Trust was developed after the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) National Guideline Clearinghouse was taken offline when federal funding was discontinued in July 2018. ECRI is a non-profit health care research organization that was AHRQ’s sole contractor for the clearinghouse for more than 20 years.

Guidelines for COVID-19 care come from international and domestic organizations and include guidance for:

• safe resumption of routine radiology care, from the American College of Radiology;
• basic and advanced life support in adults, children, and neonates with suspected or confirmed COVID-19, from the American Heart Association, American Academy of Pediatrics and more; and
• management of critically ill adults with COVID-19, from the Surviving Sepsis Campaign COVID‐19 panel.

All guidelines are vetted by ECRI’s review team, and a growing number include a “TRUST Scorecard” allowing the user to quickly assess the transparency and rigor behind the guideline. The scorecard rates its adherence to standards developed by the National Academy of Medicine, such as strength of evidence, clarity of recommendations, description of harms and benefits, inclusion of patient and public perspective and other criteria, which are available on the ECRI Guidelines Trust website.

Janice Kaczmarek, Director of ECRI Guidelines Trust, notes that the majority of COVID guidance is not yet supported by a systematic review of the evidence and few currently meet all the criteria needed to display a scorecard.

However, the COVID guidelines are updated frequently and, she adds, “ECRI has created ‘Guideline Snapshots’ — a screening tool to help users quickly identify a guideline’s focus, patient population, and major interventions — for all the COVID-19 guidelines.”

Visit the ECRI Guidelines Trust repository online.