PLYMOUTH MEETING, PA-ECRI Institute, an independent nonprofit that researches the best approaches to improving patient care, has been awarded a new three-year contract to operate, enhance, and maintain two Web-based initiatives for the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The publicly available sites are the National Guideline Clearinghouse™ (NGC), www.guideline.gov, for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines, and the National Quality Measures Clearinghouse™ (NQMC), www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov, for evidence-based quality measures and measure sets.

The two Web sites provide physicians, nurses, and other health professionals a continuously updated wealth of objective, detailed information on clinical practice guidelines and healthcare quality measures. This information helps them make more informed healthcare decisions. The two related and linked resources will remain as separate Web sites for free public access.

"Evidence-based clinical practice guidelines and quality measures are essential tools for the delivery of high-quality and effective healthcare. The new features to be implemented in these interactive, online clearinghouses will further increase access to guidelines and measures at the point of care," says Jean Slutsky, AHRQ's director for the Center for Outcomes and Evidence.

"ECRI Institute was the original technical contractor for developing and maintaining both clearinghouses, and we are delighted to continue the ongoing work," says Vivian H. Coates, M.B.A., ECRI Institute's vice president for information services and technology assessment and project director for the clearinghouses. "This new combined contract demonstrates AHRQ's continued support of our expertise in identifying, appraising, and representing evidence-based clinical practice guidelines and quality measures. We are looking forward to implementing AHRQ's vision for the future direction of the clearinghouses," Coates adds.

The NGC Web site, which logs more than one million user visits each month, contains summaries of more than 2,100 current evidence-based clinical practice guidelines from more than 300 guideline-developing organizations. The NQMC Web site, with 250,000 user visits each month, summarizes more than 1,200 evidence-based quality measures from approximately 40 measure-developing organizations. Both sites contain content from worldwide sources and see significant international use.

The ECRI Institute team includes the Joint Commission, the Harvard School of Public Health, Tufts-New England Medical Center, MANILA Consulting Group, and consultants from University of California Los Angeles and the University of California San Francisco. ECRI Institute has also recruited an editorial board and technical expert panel of internationally known experts in guidelines and quality measurement, including individuals from many universities, clinical specialty organizations, health systems, health plans, and other stakeholders.

For more information, visit www.ecri.org or contact ECRI Institute by mail at 5200 Butler Pike, Plymouth Meeting, PA 19462-1298, USA; by telephone at +1 (610) 825-6000; by fax at +1 (610) 834-1275; or by e-mail at communications(at)ecri.org.

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