AMDA Adapting AHCPR Clinical Practice Guidelines for Use in Long-term Care Facilities

Press Release Date: September 5, 1995

The American Medical Directors Association (AMDA) is adapting five clinical practice guidelines sponsored by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research. The AMDA guidelines will address the unique aspects of the long-term care setting.

The American Medical Directors Association is the national professional organization representing physicians who practice in long-term care settings as medical directors or attending physicians.

AMDA's decision to use the AHCPR-sponsored guidelines is the culmination of an eight-month effort by AMDA and a Steering Committee of leading long-term care associations to develop pragmatic guidelines to help health care professionals in long-term care facilities manage conditions prevalent among their residents. The Steering Committee included representatives from the American Health Care Assn., the American Assn. of Homes and Services for the Aging, and the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists.

The AHCPR-sponsored guidelines to be adapted are: Urinary Incontinence in Adults; Heart Failure: Evaluation and Care of Patients with Left Ventricular Systolic Dysfunction; Depression in Primary Care: Detection, Diagnosis, and Treatment; Pressure Ulcers in Adults: Prediction and Prevention; and Treatment of Pressure Ulcers.

"AMDA's adaptation of the five AHCPR-sponsored guidelines will give the long-term care professional new tools to improve the quality of life for nursing home residents as well as potentially saving the health care system millions of dollars," says AHCPR Administrator Clifton R. Gaus.

At a two-day conference held June 23-25, AMDA and its collaborators developed a format for the new guidelines and formulated four draft guidelines using the five AHCPR-sponsored guidelines as a starting point. AHCPR has two pressure ulcer guidelines; AMDA has combined them into one document. The draft guidelines contain simplified algorithms and directional pathways for decisionmaking. The new guidelines also dovetail with federal quality of care regulations that all nursing facilities are required to meet.

"The project's success depended heavily on the AHCPR's guideline, says Jonathan Musher, M.D., CMD, who chaired the June conference. "From the beginning of the project our assumption was that we could rely on the AHCPR guidelines for the scientific basis of our work, and for a comprehensive resource addressing the clinical topic."

Drafts of the new guidelines are currently under review by selected consumers, family members, nurse aides, and other practitioners in the long-term care setting. The guidelines will be presented for adoption to the AMDA membership at its annual symposium in March of 1996, and will be published in Nursing Home Medicine: The Journal of the American Medical Directors Association. The goal is to have the guidelines in use in the more than 11,000 nursing facilities around the country.

For additional information, contact AHCPR Public Affairs: Karen Migdail, (301) 427-1855.

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Internet Citation:

AMDA Adapting AHCPR Clinical Practice Guidelines for Use in Long-term Care Facilities. Press Release, September 5, 1995. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/news/press/adapting.htm

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