[Increasing the efficiency of guideline production: a narrative review]

The development of high-quality clinical practice guidelines is laborious and time-consuming. New methods have become available to streamline this process. However, the awareness of these methods should be improved.

Selective literature search in PubMed/MEDLINE und Embase.

Simple tools such as surveys or voting systems can facilitate the organization, planning and communication. Adequate methods should be used to prioritize all potential questions that should be addressed in the guideline. Published or ongoing international guidelines and systematic reviews can be used meaningfully for the planned guideline. In the case of guideline updates, it should be determined whether all parts of the guideline require an update of the evidence. The need for an update should be investigated. The concept of living guidelines has the biggest potential to provide gains in efficiency. Living guidelines are continuously updated based on new evidence instead of being regularly updated at a predefined time.

New methods allowing for more efficient guideline production have been developed and, in part, already been introduced. Before starting with the production of a guideline (or its update), the potential advantages and disadvantages/risks of the corresponding methods should be balanced.