Practice guidelines for inflammatory bowel disease: an instrument for assessment.

Abstract

The development of practice guidelines is problematic because guidelines that are too broad have no value and guidelines that are highly specific cannot address the nuances of every patient's illness. In this article, we present the hypothesis that practice guidelines that provide specific objectives for assessment and intervention in inflammatory bowel disease can be used to measure practice variation. These guidelines are proposed as 15 specific objectives with options for intervention. These objectives could be used as an instrument to quantify variations in clinical practice and to assess the benefits of practice guidelines.