AGREE: Towards effective health care policy in Europe - Promoting a coherent approach to the development, dissemination and assessment of clinical guidelines through established networks

• Research unit: EU RFP
• Project number: 02.0425

Key words (English)

Life Sciences; Medicine; Health; Scientific Research; Social Aspects

Alternative project number (English)

EU project number: QLAM-2001-0057

Research programs (English)

EU-programme: 5. Frame Research Programme - 1.1.8 Generic R&D activities

Short description (English)

See abstract

Further information (English)

Full name of research-institution/enterprise:
Institut universitaire de médecine sociale et préventive
Unité d'évaluation des soins

Abstract (English)

Clinical guidelines are one of the tools to improve the quality and appropriateness of health services. Under the BIOMED2 Programme, an appraisal instrument (AGREE) was develop to assess and compare clinical guidelines across Europe. To improve the quality of guideline setting in Europe there is a need to disseminate and implement the products from the AGREE project on a wide scale to users, guideline developers and policy makers and to evaluate their impact in terms of acceptability and usability.

The AGREE Instrument will be disseminated through workshops in 16 participating countries, using common training materials. Structured outreached visits will be organised to seven East European countries. An international network of guideline agencies and related organisations will be created and a research programme will be set up to develop practical methodologies for promoting and enhancing the use of clinical guidelines in health care practice.

The aim of the proposed accompanying measure is to promote a comprehensive approach to the production, dissemination and evaluation of high-quality clinical guidelines in order to enhance effective health care policy in Europe.

The specific objectives are:
1) To disseminate an appraisal Instrument developed with EU-funding to a targeted audience of user groups, national and local institutions and to policy makers across Europe;
2) To evaluate its impact in terms of acceptability and usability;
3) To provide a model for high quality reporting of guideline development;
4) To establish an international network of excellence for the research and application of effective guideline setting in Europe.

References in databases (English)

Swiss Database: Euro-DB of the
State Secretariat for Education and Research
Hallwylstrasse 4
CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Swiss Project-Number: 02.0425