Journal of Clinical Medicine and Therapeutics

“Clinical practice guidelines are systematically developed statements to assist practitioner and patient decisions about appropriate health care for specific clinical circumstances.” (Institute of Medicine, 1990). Modern clinical guidelines identify, summarize and evaluate the highest quality evidence and most current data about prevention, diagnosis, and prognosis, therapy including dosage of medications, risk/benefit and cost-effectiveness. Additional objectives of clinical guidelines are to standardize medical care, to raise quality of care, to reduce several kinds of risk (to the patient, to the healthcare provider, to medical insurers and health plans) and to achieve the best balance between cost and medical parameters such as effectiveness, specificity, sensitivity, resoluteness, etc.