ECRI Institute to Maintain AHRQ Databases for Clinical Guidance

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is using the ECRI Institute, a non-profit applied scientific research organization, to maintain and enhance publicly accessible, searchable databases of summaries of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines and healthcare quality measures.

The databases are the AHRQ’s National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) and National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC). According to ECRI, the information presented in a standardized format that facilitates quick retrieval and comparison among guidelines and quality measures on similar topics to provide physicians and clinicians, healthcare providers and payers, integrated delivery systems, and others a quick way to obtain detailed information on clinical practice guidelines and quality measures.

"We are honored to continue this very important work and look forward to the challenge of implementing a higher bar for the methodology underpinning the guidelines and measures in NGC and NQMC," stated Vivian H. Coates, vice president of information services and health technology assessment, ECRI Institute, and project director for the ECRI Institute contract.

According to ECRI Institute, it and AHRQ will act on the Institute of Medicine's recommendation to indicate the extent to which guidelines represented in NGC adhere to the standards for developing trustworthy guidelines.