Computer-interpretable Clinical Guidelines

Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) aim to improve the quality of care and reduce unjustified practice variations and healthcare costs. In order for them to be effective, CPGs need to be integrated with the care flow and provide patient-specific advice when and where needed. Therefore, formalizing them as computer-interpretable guidelines (CIGs) makes it possible to develop CIG-based decision-support systems (DSSs), which could better impact clinician behavior than narrative guidelines. This virtual issue includes 24 CIG-related papers that have been previously published in JBI and a recent JBI methodological review paper that reviews the literature on CIG-related methodologies since the inception of CIGs, about twenty years ago, while focusing and drawing themes for classifying CIG research from these JBI papers.