How do you keep abreast of all the latest research?
Guidelines can help in making treatment decisions. But we see that implementing guidelines into daily practice has its own challenges.
Earlier this year, researchers from AO Spine and Praxis Spinal Cord Institute in Vancouver, Canada, published a new set of clinical practice guidelines for the treatment of acute SCI. These guidelines play a major role in making treatment decisions. Despite the mounting evidence, implementing guidelines into daily clinical practice is challenging—given biases towards clinicians’ hardened routines or material deficiencies in different global health contexts.
When managing complex conditions such as acute SCI, surgeons and other health care practitioners want to be certain that what they are doing in the operating theater is in line with the latest scientific data. They require practical resources that help them make the best possible decision in any given situation. However, they frequently do not have the time to keep abreast of all the relevant research.
This is where clinical practice guidelines come in: they are a synthesis of the best and newest data, systematically reviewed and edited into a collection of actionable recommendations. In our case, we focused on three specific aspects of acute SCI: the timing of surgical decompression, hemodynamic management, and perioperative SCI.
If you are a spine or neurosurgeon dealing with acute SCI, check out these resources:
AO Spine and the PRAXIS Institute release new clinical practice guidelines for acute spinal cord injury (SCI) — Sage Perspectives Blog (sagepub.com)