[A concept for a clearing procedure for guidelines in Germany]

Guidelines are efficient tools for the maintenance and improvement of the quality of care and contribute to the increase of the efficacy of care. However, the quality of guidelines has not been investigated or improved much in Germany. This is especially true for the formal assessment of guidelines regarding the collection and evaluation of evidence, their feasibility and their effects on health economy. There is an internationally recognized method available to examine and evaluate current and new guidelines with respect to these three categories. This paper proposes a clearing procedure for guidelines in Germany to systematically improve the quality of guidelines and to offer authors as well as users of guidelines valuable informations.