Patient-centered guideline development: Best practices can improve the quality and impact of guidelines

Guideline development is improved when diverse stakeholders, including patients, specialists, and experts, share power in the process, from defining the scope of the question to the final stages of review. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) and Guidelines International Network (G-I-N) have each released best-practice standards for clinical guidelines that place health care consumers at the forefront of guideline development. The AAO-HNSF has placed a growing emphasis on consumer engagement in its latest guideline development manual and has developed clear, multifaceted infrastructural approaches to identify and utilize consumers in guideline development and guideline review. This article reviews those recommendations and emphasizes that patient-centered guideline development can improve the quality and impact of medical guidelines.