Guidelines and Statements

The Guidelines and Statements Division of the SIR provides a framework of evidence-based clinical practice documents to ensure patient safety and enhance the delivery of patient care.

Read more about our level of evidence and strength of recommendation methodology.

SIR and the Guidelines and Statements Division welcomes opportunities to collaborate on document development with other societies on topic areas that align with IR.  Guidelines and Statements members can be nominated to writing panels and participate in peer review processes for external documents before publication.  Additionally, SIR may ask societies to collaborate on society-lead documents to foster cooperation in areas where multiple specialties intersect and to minimize duplication of efforts.

If you are interested in collaborating with SIR on a topic, please contact Liza D'Onofrio, Senior Director, Quality Programs.

Types of documents developed

Document type	Description	Systematic literature search and review	Graded recommendations informed by quality of evidence	Assist in clinical decision-making	Consensus-based recommendations for new/emerging procedures lacking robust data
Clinical Practice Guidelines	Provide recommendations about benefits and drawbacks of different care options intended to optimize patient care	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Appropriate use criteria	Specify situations where it is appropriate to perform a certain procedure	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Position statements	Reflect the society’s opinion concerning areas of evolving clinical practice and/or technologies	Sometimes	Sometimes	Sometimes	Yes
Expert consensus statements	Provide guidance from experts in the clinical area	No	No	Sometimes	Yes
Practice Guidance Document (NEW)	Provide robust background on clinical process, procedure, or therapy; summaries of areas of consensus and persistent gaps;  formation of consensus statements when evidence may be limited	Yes	No	Sometimes	Yes
Reporting standards	Define a set of vocabulary for processes and outcomes to standardize comparison of data across multiple studies	No	No	No	Yes
Competence and training statements	Make recommendations on training and competencies required for a given clinical topic, procedure, or therapy	No	No	No	Yes

 

What is a CPG?

Clinical Practice Guidelines are statements that include recommendations intended to optimize patient care that are informed by a systematic review of evidence and an assessment of the benefits and harms of alternative care options (Clinical practice Guidelines We Can Trust, IOM Report 2011)

How is a CPG different than SIR’s other document types?

All of SIR’s evidence-based documents rely on scientific literature to inform recommendations. However, CPGs are based on systematic reviews of evidence focused on key clinical questions that include an assessment of the overall quality of the body of evidence.

What can CPGs be used for?

CPGs can go on to inform health care policy, quality improvement initiatives, and appropriate use criteria (AUCs). Guideline recommendations can also be incorporated into Clinical Decision Support systems to standardize care and reduce unnecessary variation in care.

Conflicts of interest

Read SIR's conflict of interest policy for CPG writing panels.