gms | German Medical Science

Background: Clinical practice guidelines in cancer need to be regularly updated as new evidence is published, easily disseminated and enable stakeholder participation in a cost effective manner. These goals were difficult to achieve with printed guidelines so Cancer Council Australia has developed a web-based wiki platform for guideline development (GD).

Objectives: To develop a web-based platform to support GD and evaluate its utility at each stage.

Methods: The key steps in GD had to be integrated with the wiki capability. After an expert group identified the key clinical questions, a search strategy was developed and the literature searches recorded. An online critical appraisal process was developed. Evidence-based recommendations were formulated and evidence tables automatically generated. The stakeholders could comment on each guideline section online. The guidelines were disseminated electronically. Web analytics were used to monitor usage. Literature alerts continue to be recorded, the writers remain engaged to appraise the papers and update the guideline as necessary.

Results: The wiki platform was developed in 2010. Using lung cancer treatment guidelines as an example, 22 authors identified 54 clinical questions. Literature searches retrieved 1607 articles. 1770 critical appraisals were completed. 156 internal online comments were recorded in 9 weeks to fine-tune the initial draft content. In the 9 months from July 2011, web analytics revealed 13,341 page views at 1.22 minutes average per page and a 29.14% bounce rate.

Conclusions: The wiki platform was embraced by both guideline writers and the public and the next phase is to test sustainability and linking the guidelines with educational tools.