Internists' evaluation of guidelines: the IMCARE Practice Guidelines Network.

This paper presents the attitudes and experiences of one group of practicing internists, the IMCARE Practice Guidelines Network, with clinical practice guidelines. From its beginning the Network has enjoyed close ties to both the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) with their guideline mandates. The Network is a self-selected group of 471 internists and their subspecialty colleagues, dispersed throughout the U.S. Network member evaluations of draft clinical practice guidelines present a compelling case for the need for clarity of language and a more condensed guideline structure. As Network members' critique indicates, once published, guidelines have become communication tools.