Digital guidelines of the twenty-first century: Requirements for the structured development, application and evaluation of medical knowledge

Abstract

Until now, clinical guidelines have been understood as generalized representations of clinical knowledge that, based on best available evidence, show the requirements for patient care in specific patient situations. This expert opinion article is intended to discuss how digital guidelines should be designed and which requirements must be met for the structured development, application and evaluation of such guidelines. The digitalization of guidelines must take into account the transformation of analogue text-based guideline information into formats that enable human-machine interaction via user interfaces, that show physicians the requirements for guideline-compliant patient care and that also enable machine storage, machine execution and machine processing of patient data.