As we covered in our yearly guidelines recap, in the United States alone, there were nearly 300 clinical guidelines published in 2024. With an average guideline being the equivalent of between 50–100 pages long, this means each year healthcare providers would need to read between 15,000-30,000 pages to keep current. That is like reading War & Peace 15-30 times per year! And as difficult as that would be to do, it’s just as hard staying abreast of the availability of new or updated clinical guidelines. So that’s what we’re going to focus on today - our 7(ish) best tips and tricks to keep updated and track new guidelines as they are published! 

So let’s get right into it…

Society Websites / Guidelines Pages

  • Let’s start with the most common: the website of the authoring organization(s) themselves. You can create a spreadsheet or a bookmark tab with all of the organizations most important to you, and then save the URLs for their specific guideline pages. You can check these pages regularly, for example, weekly or monthly, to see when new guidelines are added. The benefit of this approach is that many societies also publish and link to various guideline derivative tools, such as patient guides, plain text summaries, slide sets, pocket guides, and more. So not only can you keep tabs on new medical guidelines, but also have access to some of the valuable derivative tools to allow for easier implementation of those guidelines. You can also check out a list of society guideline developers by browsing “By Organization” in our library, and then following the links for each back to their individual websites. 

Guideline Central Website / Guidelines Mobile App

  • Of course, no article about finding and accessing clinical guidelines is complete without a nod to Guideline Central - the largest library of clinical guidelines with guideline summaries in the world. Not to toot our own horn, but we feel that this is the easiest way to stay in the loop en masse. You can navigate to the guidelines library, and then search, browse, or sort guidelines in a number of ways. You can also filter based on publication date! And coming up (very soon), our new advanced search and rec search filters will change how guidelines are searched and used. Stay tuned, but we’re planning for an early Summer release on those. 

Guidelines International Network Library

  • From one Guidelines Library to another, the GIN library is great for those looking to find new guidelines published by organizations outside of the United States - this is where they truly shine. They are also great for finding out about guidelines that are in the early stages of development, but may not publish for a year or more still. For this reason, it’s our “go to” suggestion for guideline developers! Link to Guidelines International.

Guideline Alerts Service

  • Another entry from Guideline Central - in addition to sorting by “newest” guidelines on the Guidelines Library page of the website, you can also stay informed of new guidelines by signing up for the free Guideline Alerts service. This is a monthly email that outlines all of the newest guidelines published. month. It also covers new FDA approvals as a bonus. If you’re interested in subscribing to guideline alerts, create a free account and then follow the prompts to choose your desired specialties and organizations. We also offer institutional / enterprise guidelines tracking services, and you can read more about that further into this post below.

Medical Journals 

  • Similar to society websites, creating a list and/or tab with bookmarked URLs for the various medical journals is a great way to stay ahead of the curve. For each journal you can note / bookmark two different pages - the “current issue” page, as well as the “newest articles” / “advance articles” / “online first” (or similar) page. Guidelines are often posted here, first. And a bonus tip - you can sign up for the monthly email for each of these journals to make it even easier. And a double bonus - load each of the URLs or grab the RSS feeds and access these in a free aggregator, such as Feedly. This is a great way to track many sources at once to find the newest guidelines relevant to your practice or specialty area!

Specialized Data Sources 

  • OK, so this is sort of a 3-in-1 tip (so technically I think it’s the top 10 tips, and not top 7). Here’s we’ll look at “specialized” datasets for guidelines:
    • USPSTF EPSS Tool - The USPSTF is the premier source of guidance specific to preventive services in the USA. Their web and mobile based EPSS tool is a very user friendly way to browse guidance broadly, or to enter in specific age/sex and more daat to see a list of recommended preventive services, organized by grade. In addition, you can actually access the USPSTF Guidelines directly withing Guideline Central!
    • NICE (UK) - This one is a bit more specialized for folks in the United Kingdom, but for those individuals, you’d be hard pressed to find a better UK-focused source of guidelines than the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). The NICE website offers hundreds of guidelines, technology appraisals, and more, and can be easily searched or browsed. Link to NICE Guidelines.
    • Trip Database - Tools like TRIP are a great way to find new content or guidelines. The downside is that there is no dedicated “browse” feature, so you must search specifically for what you’re looking for. But it’s still a great resource to search medical guidelines worldwide. Link to TRIP
    • MAGIC App - Like GIN, where MAGIC App shines is in coverage of guidelines outside of the United States. And also like GIN, we feel it’s a strong tool for the guideline developers themselves. If you develop guidelines using GRADE, you should give MAGIC App a visit! Link to MAGIC App.

Google Alerts

  • Speaking of alerts, Google Alerts is another great tool for notifications of new content meeting your search parameters. You can search broadly, phrase based, or with an exact match, and choose to receive notifications weekly, daily, or instantly as new results are found within Google. You can also filter by region, relevancy, specific sources, and more. Google Alerts may take some trial and error to get right, but once you get the hang of it you will be receiving tailored guideline notices direct to your inbox. Google Alerts is great for much more than just guidelines as well. Let us know if you’d like to see a future article all about how to make the most of Google Alerts to stay in the loop on all things medical literature. Link to Google Alerts.

PLUS: Two Additional Bonus Strategies and Services to Keep Up With New CLinical Guidelines for Large Organizations:

Clinical Guidelines API

  • For organizations looking to keep current on new guidelines at scale, the Guideline Central API is a very scalable way to do that. Make sure all of our students, staff clinicians, network providers, employees. and other stakeholders are up to date on the latest evidence-based clinical recommendations from the USA, and other countries around the world. You can view our clinical guidelines API page to learn more. Side note, you can also learn more about EHR-compatible computable guidelines solutions here.

Guidelines Reporting, Calendaring, & Alerting for Biotech and Life Science Companies

  • Of course, at Guideline Central, that is what we’re all about! If you are an organization looking to keep up with new guidelines, you can also consider one of our institutional/enterprise guidelines tracking services: This is a monthly service that includes: a calendar/pipeline showing guidelines currently in progress + expected publication times, a list of recently published guidelines, and an instant alert/reporting system for peer review or public comment opportunities that may align with your current products/therapeutic approaches. If you’re a pharma or device or other biotech/life sciences company interested in being more proactive when it comes to guidelines, contact us today to learn more about our clinical guidelines tracking services. 

There you have it! These are the 7 best tips and tricks to help you find the newest clinical practice guidelines, along with two bonus offerings for larger organizations and life sciences companies. 

Did we miss anything? Or do you have tips/tricks of your own that help you find and access the newest clinical practice guidelines? Drop us a line. Otherwise, as always, thanks for tuning in, and we’ll see you again soon!

We anticipate a continued increase in the publication of guidelines across all topics and specialties in 2025. Be sure to sign up for alerts to stay informed about when new guidelines are published or updated.

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