PLYMOUTH MEETING, PA – ECRI Institute, a not-for-profit research organization, has received a $10.7 million, three-year contract to maintain two Web sites for the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

The sites are the National Guideline Clearinghouse for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines, and the National Quality Measures Clearinghouse for evidence-based quality measures and measure sets.  

The sites provide physicians, nurses, and other health professionals continuously updated information on clinical practice guidelines and healthcare quality measures. The two related and linked resources will remain as separate Web sites for free public access.

“Evidence-based clinical practice guidelines and quality measures are essential tools for the delivery of high quality and effective healthcare,” said Jean Slutsky, AHRQ’s director for the Center for Outcomes and Evidence. The new features to be implemented in these interactive, online clearinghouses will further increase access to guidelines and measures at the point of care.”

The NGC Web site logs more than one million user visits each month. It contains summaries of more than 2,100 evidence-based clinical practice guidelines from more than 300 organizations.  The NQMC Web site, has 250,000 user visits each month. It summarizes more than 1,200 evidence-based quality measures from approximately 40 organizations.  Both sites contain content from worldwide sources and see significant international use.

Vivian H. Coates, ECRI Institute's vice president for information services and technology assessment and project director for the clearinghouses, said the contract “demonstrates AHRQ's continued support of our expertise in identifying, appraising, and representing evidence-based clinical practice guidelines and quality measures.”

 The ECRI Institute team includes the Joint Commission, the Harvard School of Public Health, Tufts-New England Medical Center, MANILA Consulting Group and consultants from University of California Los Angeles and the University of California San Francisco.