Implementing evidence-based recommendations for health care: a roundtable comparing European and American experiences

A roundtable held October 5-6 1999, in Maidstone, Kent, United Kingdom, was convened to identify current strategies and ongoing challenges in implementing evidence-based practice guidelines in health care. Despite numerous new medical research findings for improving health care and despite the dissemination of many practice guidelines, the recommendations from these efforts are not being uniformly adopted. Overuse, underuse, and misuse plague the practice of medicine today.

Multiple implementation strategies are more likely to succeed that a single implementation method; local selection and adaptation of guidelines are critical; and reminders, educational outreach (for prescribing), and interactive educational workshops are generally effective.

In most countries, guideline development has progressed from consensus conference, to evidence-based statements, and finally to evidence-based guidelines that also consider cost-effectiveness. Guideline development is the most advanced in The Netherlands, where physicians have coordinated their efforts with the government to achieve more uniformity than is found elsewhere.

Designing systems that will facilitate change--not changing physician behavior--should be the focus. The concern for effecting improvement in health care is now more acute because of the increased attention being given to medical errors and patient safety.

Multifaceted approaches are clearly the most important method for improving care. Such approaches may include many improvement methods, none of which work well alone most of the time or any of the time.