Guidelines Development Resources

The Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) offers several resources for guideline leaders, panelists, and public members to assist in the guidelines development process.

SCCM Guidelines Standard Operating Procedures Manual
The Standard Operating Procedure Manual highlights steps and processes for the development, publication, and dissemination of evidence-based guidelines and clinical practice parameters developed by SCCM volunteers and staff. The purpose of publishing guidelines is to optimize patient care. This manual delineates important aspects of processes in accordance with standards set by the SCCM Council with implementation via the American College of Critical Care Medicine Board of Regents.

Conflict of Interest
SCCM guidelines include rigorous governance processes related to conflict of interest (COI). This infographic describes the types of COI individuals should consider when submitting forms for service on SCCM clinical practice or administrative guidelines development panels.

Clinical Practice and Administrative Guidelines: Frequently Asked Questions for Public Members
SCCM invites public members to serve as panelists on guidelines development panels. These FAQs describe the process.

Submit a Guideline Topic

Submit suggested topics for potential future guidelines development. Submitted proposals will be reviewed by the American College of Critical Care Medicine.

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GRADE Educational Resources

McMaster University GRADE Online Learning Modules: These online learning modules from McMaster University are designed to help guidelines developers and authors of systematic reviews learn how to use the Grading of Recommondations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) approach to grade the evidence in systematic reviews, to create summary of findings tables and GRADE evidence profiles and move from evidence to making recommendations.

Advanced GRADE: Making the Most of Guidelines Development

Learning objectives:

Apply the Grading of Recommendation Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach to a variety of levels of evidence
Organize data using the GRADE Guideline Development Tool
Discuss common problems when applying GRADE to guidelines development

Applying the GRADE Approach to the Grading of Evidence

Learning objectives:

Apply the Grading of Recommendation Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) approach to write a recommendation using high-quality evidence as defined by the methodology
Apply the GRADE approach to write a recommendation using low-quality evidence as defined by the methodology
List situations where a recommendation need not be issued

Toolkit Development

Implementation of guidelines at the bedside often requires the deployment of tools to assist clinicians in applying guidelines to patient care. This short six-minute recorded webcast describes what can be included in toolkits for SCCM guidelines.