Appendix: Web resources

Sources of guidelines and evidence-based care

• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality – A well-populated US government website with evidence-based guidelines, patient information and more.
• Bandolier – A monthly journal, based in Oxford but with a global perspective, Bandolier is a trustworthy and well-recognised source of evidence-based healthcare information. Also click here for more information.
• Centre for Evidence-based Medicine – An Oxford-based centre established with the aim of developing, teaching and promoting evidence-based healthcare and providing support and resources to anyone who wants to make use of them. Its website has useful links to specialty-specific EBM sites.  
• The Cochrane Collaboration – An international organisation that aims to help people make well-informed decisions about healthcare by preparing, maintaining and promoting the accessibility of systematic reviews of the effects of healthcare interventions.
• Clinical Evidence – BMJ Clinical Evidence publishes systematic reviews summarising the current state of knowledge and uncertainty about the prevention and treatment of clinical conditions. Athens users and subscribers can access the reviews online via a PC or PDA. There is also a handbook available for purchase.
• eGuidelines – This site focuses on EBM for primary care. It comprises regular summaries of national and European guidelines and also hosts a useful database (CLIP) of clinical effectiveness initiatives implemented by practices across the country.
• Health Evidence Bulletins Wales – Collection of evidence-based guidance for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions.
• National Guideline Clearinghouse – A comprehensive database hosted by the US government of evidence-based clinical guidelines and related documents from around the world. It has a useful facility for comparing guidelines.
• National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence – NICE aims to improve the quality of clinical services across the NHS by formulating guidelines on numerous conditions, and advising on methods of audit with relation to these guidelines.
• Netting the Evidence – Netting the Evidence is intended to facilitate evidence-based healthcare by providing support and access to helpful organisations and useful learning resources, such as an evidence-based virtual library, software and journals. The resources can be browsed by type, and a search facility is available. [Also see www.shef.ac.uk]
• NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD) – The Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD) is a department of York University, established in 1994. It carries out high-quality systematic reviews that “evaluate the effects of health and social care interventions and the delivery and organisation of healthcare”. It publishes several bulletins which can be downloaded from its website.
• NHS Clinical Knowledge Summaries – A source of clinical knowledge for the NHS about the common conditions managed in primary and first contact care.
• Scottish Intercollegiate Guideline Network (SIGN) – The Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) was formed in 1993. Its objective is to improve the quality of healthcare for patients in Scotland by reducing variation in practice and outcome, through the development and dissemination of national clinical guidelines containing recommendations for effective practice based on current evidence.
• The Trip Database – The aims of the TRIP Database have remained the same since its inception in 1997 – to allow health professionals to easily find the highest quality material available on the web to help support evidence based-practice.