Clinical practice guidelines are commonly defined as “systematically developed statements to assist practitioner and patient decisions about appropriate health care for specific clinical circumstances.” The issues underlying the increasing interest in clinical practice guidelines are concerns over quality of care, marked variation in physician practice, and increasing costs. Many believe that guidelines can serve as a vehicle to address these problems. While clinical practice guidelines are produced by various organizations, such as medical societies or associations, in Japan, they are hardly ever accessible to the public. We at the Medical Media Center of Toho University are compiling relevant guideline information, and a list is available to the public on the Media Center Home Page. In this article I discuss the concept and prospects for the future development of guidelines, embracing the issue of the “EBM Health Care Information Service” as well as overseas counterparts.
