Ranchi: RIMS conducts workshop on Grade method for Clinical Guideline Development
CONRAD DIAS
Ranchi, Dec 16: Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) is organizing a three-day (Dec 16-18) national workshop and conference on the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation) method for clinical guideline development.
Dr Gordon Guyatt and Dr Bram Rochwerg from McMaster University, Canada teach the methods to more than 100 medical students/doctors during the conference.
Dr Kameshwar Prasad, director of RIMS, told the press that the guidelines used during the Covid pandemic in India were not evidence-based and now the guidelines used are evidence-based guidelines.
He added that to develop these guidelines, there is a specific method that is evidence-based and that that specific method is taught to doctors during the three-day conference.
Medical students and doctors from all over India like Chandigarh, Delhi, Gujarat, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh etc are participating in the workshop.
Dr Gordon Guyatt said that historically there were many unreliable guidelines that were misleading and did not benefit patients. However, there are no standards for reliable guidelines that provide the best guidance during the treatment of a disease.
He added that reliable guidelines are the best guidelines because they are evidence-based, appropriately summarized and understood. It is complicated to understand the study and draw a line. For a guideline panel, it is very important to have high quality evidence. It’s a complicated business.
In this workshop, the doctor duo from Canada will guide and teach the medical professionals to recognize which evidence is of low quality and which evidence is of high quality, so that they will finally have reliable guidelines that will give the best result instead of unreliable guidelines.
Covid-19 is especially one of the examples of evidence-based guidelines as several pieces of evidence were used in setting up the guidelines for covid containment.
Dr Gordon added that many countries in the world like Canada, USA, Spain, Brazil and China have adopted the Degree method but India is yet to adopt it. He believes that this workshop will really help establish a foothold on the Degree method in the Indian medical field.
Dr. Prasad said that the Governing Body of RIMS has approved for the implementation of these guidelines for medical problems related to the state of Jharkhand, but it is clear that doctors from all over India are benefiting from this workshop.
“Hopefully now we’ll have some better guidelines that protect the health of the nation,” he said.
