Training professionals in clinical guideline development: Increasing quality by collaborating

Background: To deliver high-quality clinical guidelines, we increasingly need a capacity of experts trained in the methods of developing guidelines. The Working group Development of primary care guidelines’ (WOREL) and the Belgian Centre for Evidence Based Medicine (Cebam) collaborate to train healthcare professionals and academics in guideline development. Objective: To describe the Belgian approach of guideline
development training. Methods: A team of senior guideline development
methodologists determined the content and methods of the training module which are
based on the standard principles of guideline development. The didactic methods of the
training respond to the needs of the participants. Results: Twice a year a four-day training on guideline development takes place. The target audience is an interdisciplinary group of healthcare professionals. The blended course consists of three online
sessions, one face-to-face in-depth training and a self-study part. We plan the first 3 days
of the course with intervals of 3 weeks to give the participants the possibility to train the newly learned skills. After six months a fourth training day aims to address problems experienced during their own guideline development process. The course takes place in both national languages. Discussion and conclusio: This training method has as added value that the training is in the native language and given by trainers who know the Belgian context. The blended factor gives the opportunity to select the most proper working method for the competence to be acquired. To anticipate the needs of future guideline developers, we also consider a continuous offer via e-learning.