Guideline Development

Systematic Review Processes

The Indico CGP facilitates the key processes of systematic reviews including reference screening and data abstraction.  From within the platform it is possible to set up review projects that can undertake multiuser 2 stage reference screening and multiuser data abstraction.  A reference library can be built to house all of the included studies full texts.

Guideline Content Management

Through the software application guideline developers are able to manage their guideline content in a central database and to disseminate their guidelines through many distribution channels, thereby dramatically reducing the time and expense of content management.  Multiple users can write on the one document concurrently through the use of the centralized database.

Drafts of the guideline can be written externally in Microsoft Word and subsequently imported in if this suits the writing committees work flows.

Peer Review Functionality

The Indico CGP facilitates a formal Guideline Review process which replicates the track changes process used in Microsoft Word.  Project Managers or Panel Chairs can commence a Guideline Review.  The Reviewers are able to either edit the content or add a comment to any section of the guideline section.

Once a Panel Review is completed, editors are able to open of the Review and look at all of the comments and edits made for each section.  The editor can chose to accept or reject the editing comments and write notes in response to the reviewer content.  This data can then be exported and distributed as required by the Panel Chair and assigned editors.

Recommendation Voting

Once the draft guideline is completed it is possible for the recommendations to undergo a formal voting process.  The Recommendation Voting process is based on the modified Delphi technique.  Voters open up the Voting Form and indicate whether they agree or not with the Recommendation.  Comments can also be made against each Recommendation.  At the completion of the voting round, the system calculates whether consensus was reached for each recommendation.

After this process, a second round can be commenced with only those Recommendations that need to be voted on again.  This process is repeated until all Recommendations reach consensus or the Panel Chair determines consensus can’t be reached.  At this point the panel vote is stopped.

Evidence Tables

Reviews of the medical literature over the last 5 years have repeatedly demonstrated that one of the key criteria that clinician looks for in a clinical guideline is the level of support for the recommendations.   For this reason the Indico CGP links all of the evidence tables, generated by you to the guideline recommendations.

Online reference Management

Indico CGP has an advanced Reference Management System that allows users to link imported references to specific sections of content.  The link created is specific to the reference.  Once imported the link is viewed as the Author name and year of publication.  When the reference is exported to word all the references are inserted into the text and assigned a number that corresponds to its position in the reference list.

Guideline updating

If a published version of the guideline already exists there are two options available for guideline publishing.  The first option is to apply changes to the existing version and all changes made between last publication and current are migrated to the published version.

Alternatively, it is possible to replace the entire published guideline and have the original version archived.  If this option is selected a clone of the existing guideline is sent to the archive and can be viewed by those that have access.  In this way a historical record of the guideline is maintained within the system and the issues of version control are eliminated.

Guideline Metadata

From the content management page it is possible to assign metadata elements to the section.  These elements include ICD-9 codes Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) code and keywords.  Indico CGP comes with the SNOMED keywords loaded.  Alternatively, it is possible for guideline developers to add their own keywords.

Project Reporting

Indico CGP has implemented a Reporting engine to allow project managers and panel chairs manage the Review and Data extraction processes.  Reports are also built for the individual users to view their completed and outstanding work requirements.