Seven Benefits of Putting Practice Guidelines to Work
Practice guidelines can provide tangible benefits to organized systems of care. In a workshop at APA's 2005 annual meeting, John McIntyre, M.D., chair of APA's Steering Committee on Practice Guidelines, outlined seven major benefits that accrue to organized systems that are able to incorporate practice guidelines into routine care:
Standardization of education. “I think this is one of the most important uses of guidelines,” McIntyre said. “Staff are able to learn about the evidence and what we think should be used to treat various disorders.” | |||||
Decreasing variation in practice across practice settings. | |||||
Raising the standard of care. | |||||
Promoting research. “As you are writing guidelines, you can identify areas where there isn't good research to support one particular intervention over another,” McIntyre said. “We have been able to go to government and foundation funders and say, `We need more research in order to write better guidelines.'” | |||||
Education of patient and family. | |||||
Reducing stigma. “The fact that we have treatments that work and that are specific for various disorders undercuts a lot of myths about psychiatric care,” said McIntyre. | |||||
Dealing with regulatory agencies. “Increasingly, these regulatory agencies are looking for whether the system of care you are a part of uses guidelines,” McIntyre said. | |||||
