The American Society of Clinical Oncology began providing various guidelines for care that aim to minimize bias in practice recommendations in 1993. Now the organization is planning to implement a range of updates to its guidelines, including integrating data from its CancerLinQ rapid learning system, expanding guidelines to consider multiple chronic conditions and keeping future guidelines more current by evolving approaches to more-rapidly update them.
In a Journal of Clinical Oncology paper, researchers from a variety of health systems detail the ASCO's future guidelines goals and outline challenges. The first is how data taken from CancerLinQ will be integrated into practice recommendations and translated into viable technology-based clinical decision support tools.
The second challenge is in making ASCO guidelines more accessible and useful at the point of care.
"This is long overdue," the authors wrote. "Recent surveys have revealed that members filter out dense print material with an academic feel; they prefer material with immediate utility that is presented efficiently. Accordingly, ASCO guidelines need to be easily accessible at the point of care and embedded within clinicians' workflow in digital form. In short, it is time to (click and) drag ASCO guidelines into the 21st century."
Accomplishing all of the objectives the ASCO has set forth hinges on implementing methods of updating guidelines more seamlessly and regularly, the authors conclude.