Clinical guidelines: legal and clinical risk management issues

Clinical guidelines are becoming a frequent feature of the care environment. With more patients resorting to litigation and complaints the legal aspects of guidelines takes on an increasing significance. Cases on clinical guidelines have gone to court. This article discusses examples of these and gives practical guidance on some key legal aspects of clinical guidelines such as the need to schedule a review date and to fully document the development process. Dangers of clinical guidelines are also highlighted. The author further develops some of the themes on legal and clinical risk management aspects of guidelines that he discussed in a previous article (Vol 5(5): 266-7).