Guidelines Capacity Enhancement Program

Enabling quality guideline development

The Guidelines Capacity Enhancement Program builds skills in guideline development through training programs and other educational resources. This work supports the production and adoption of guidelines by practitioners and is available on cancerview.ca.

Progress to date

• The Standards and Guidelines Evidence (SAGE) repository includes 1,348 guidelines that span the cancer continuum from screening to end-of life care. Intended for individuals interested in sharing knowledge to improve cancer control, SAGE is an online evidence-based searchable database of cancer control guidelines and standards.
• A Cancer Guidelines Resource Centre is available for guideline developers and health-care professionals involved in cancer control. It also offers guideline support to cancer patients, the general public, health-care administrators and decision-makers. Key resources include information and tools to facilitate the use and development of guidelines, and a webinar series focused on topics related to guideline development.
• Finalized reports on the status of cancer guidelines identify gaps in and strengths of existing practice guidelines. Created by the Partnership’s Capacity Enhancement Program and housed on cancerview.ca, the status reports examine reporting quality, demographic characteristics and development methods, as well as the general scope and content of the guidelines for each disease site.

Additionally, the Partnership is supporting the understanding, development and optimal use of guidelines through the following work:

• The Guidelines, Resource Allocation and Public Education (GRAPE) program includes an online tutorial, PrePARE (Preparing Participants for Allocating Resources Equitably), to help people understand how health technology assessment is used in decision-making. PrePARE is geared toward community representatives, clinicians and policy-makers who are tasked with making recommendations about how to establish priorities and allocate funding based on a variety of important financial, evidence-based and societal factors. The tutorial will be available on cancerview.ca in December 2011.
• The Partnership’s Guidelines Leaders Forum continues to bring together leaders of guideline programs from various jurisdictions to exchange knowledge and explore opportunities to work together. A key outcome has been the development of a new mentorship program that connects guideline developers to training support from the Capacity Enhancement Program. To date, seven guideline development groups have taken advantage of the program, among them five provincial programs and two pediatric programs.