Clinical practice guidelines and quality measures are now literally in the hands of health care professionals, according to the ECRI Institute. The U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ’s) National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) and National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC) websites—considered the top resources for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines and quality measures—are now accessible on mobile devices.

ECRI Institute developed the clearinghouses under contract to AHRQ, and currently maintains and enhances them.

“We expect this latest enhancement to transform the search experience for busy professionals who are more likely to be on their phones or tablets than on a computer. NGC and NQMC now deliver the on-the-go access that clinicians and other healthcare professionals prefer,” says Vivian Coates, a vice president at ECRI Institute, and project director for the ECRI Institute contract to create and maintain the AHRQ clearinghouses.

NGC’s  updated Web site lets users browse by clinical specialty and organization, while the NQMC website gives users the ability to browse by measure domain, measurement setting, and organization. Both Web sites enable users to personalize their searches with specific filters to access content of interest faster, and compare clinical guidelines and quality measures right in the search results.

“The revamped design empowers our users to access this content whether using a laptop, tablet, or smartphone,” says Mary Nix, NGC/NQMC staff lead at AHRQ’s Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement.

Further, NQMC’s Web site includes a new Core Quality Measure filter to find measures developed by the Core Quality Measure Collaborative. Led by America’s Health Insurance Plans, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the National Quality Forum, the collaborative promotes standardization of measure use and collection across payers in the public and private sectors.

The websites, www.guideline.gov and www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov, provide clinicians, researchers, and others with access to more than 2,000 guideline summaries in NGC, and more than 2,200 measures summaries in NQMC at no cost. Visit www.ecri.org for more information.