The BMJ is launching a new series called 'Rapid Recommendations' - a collaboration with an international group of researchers and doctors, working together with patients - to quickly and reliably transform research evidence into clinical practice recommendations.
It is impossible for an individual doctor to keep up with the latest research or understand whether they might alter their practice. And it can take years for new evidence to filter into guidelines, during which time patients often receive outdated care.
The BMJ wants to change this by publishing a short set of recommendations soon after new potentially practice-changing evidence becomes available.
The project also aims to tackle problems with guidelines. For instance, they may be written by those from a limited range of medical specialties and may not consider issues that matter most to patients. Guideline authors may also have financial, intellectual or professional interests which might alter the recommendations they make.
Each guideline panel - made up of patients, front-line clinicians, researchers, guideline experts and The BMJ - will use the GRADE approach (a system used to assess the quality of evidence) for creating and presenting evidence summaries and making recommendations. Each panel will also consider patient values and preferences, the quality of the evidence, the magnitude of benefits and harms, and other key practical issues.
The first article in the series looks at the latest research for a new type of heart valve surgery known as transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI), compared to open heart surgery for patients with severe aortic stenosis. After considering the new evidence, the panel recommend that TAVI is likely the best choice for patients with aortic valve disease.
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