the plan for assessing guideline implementation and barriers to implementation;
• the plan for assessing the validity of the guidelines; and
• revision plans.
The part of the report dealing with matters for future research should contain the following:
• suggestions for improving the guidelines and their capacity for enhancing future care and optimising resource use;
• gaps in scientific knowledge or other information gaps—for example, costing data—for future investigation; and
• organisational, funding or other ‘process’ factors that might enhance the quality of outcomes expected from the guidelines’ implementation.
3.11 Assessing the guideline document
The adequacy of the guideline document itself should be evaluated by examining whether it conforms to the principles outlined in this guide. Note that the Institute of Medicine has developed a provisional instrument for prospectively assessing the soundness of guidelines and the method by which they were developed (Field & Lohr 1992). The Institute’s provisional assessment instrument is a formal questionnaire that requires experts to rate the guidelines according to a range of characteristics, such as their clinical applicability and flexibility, reliability and reproducibility, validity and clarity.
The Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network has also developed criteria for appraising the guideline development process; it may be of value in the Australian setting (SIGN 1995).
3.12 Consultation
The guidelines should be referred for examination to a wider group of interested parties that may not have already been involved:
• practising clinicians;
• clinical colleges and allied health and professional organisations;
• consumer groups;
• Commonwealth, State and Territory and local health authorities; and
• industry groups.