South African Guidelines Excellence (SAGE): Clinical practice guidelines – Quality and credibility

Abstract

In this editorial, the first in a series of six, we present issues critical to CPG development and uptake, relevant to South Africa (SA) and beyond. While recent local efforts to improve CPG quality and credibility in SA are commendable, opportunities to progress SA CPG quality and uptake are limited by the lack of a central, nationally recognised and accepted CPG development unit. Such a unit has the potential to significantly increase SA efforts to improve and standardise high-quality, credible CPG development, reporting and uptake. To this end, the Project SAGE (South African Guidelines Excellence) team is engaging in a 3-year stakeholder-driven process that aims to better understand the guideline development arena in SA, and improve the standard of local guideline development, adaptation, contextualisation, and ultimately implementation of primary healthcare guidelines.