Physicians face complex decisions every day. Yet, most clinical practice guidelines – often hundreds of pages long and scattered across various organizations – live as static documents, meaning physicians must consciously choose to sift through them and must do so manually. Overall, the process is reactive and burdensome.
As one physician told Medical Professionals Reference: “As a personal family physician, if I were to read every single guideline issued by every society or medical institution, along with my other daily responsibilities, it would be like reading all 8 volumes* of Harry Potter every single day.”
Guideline Central, the world’s largest library of healthcare guidelines, has partnered with IMO Health to change that. Recently, we spoke with the Guideline Central team about this effort and its collaboration with IMO Health. Read on to understand the problem Guideline Central set out to solve – and the steps they’re taking to address it.
Transforming guidelines from static to computable with IMO Health
When Guideline Central began evaluating technology partners, they were seeking a value-set solution not only to use but to “build and grow with,” Wise said. Having previously integrated IMO Health’s foundational electronic health record (EHR) solution, Guideline Central was familiar with the company’s name and reputation.
“We looked at every tool out there, including value-set specific tools – there was no better solution than IMO Health,” Chris Wise, Vice President of Guideline Central, said. “By the time we’re done with [implementation], we’re going to have more value sets than any other solution has pre-built.”
With IMO Health’s support, Guideline Central is converting hundreds, and eventually thousands, of clinical guidelines into machine-readable formats that can connect with EHRs and decision-support systems. The goal, Wise said, is to make guidance proactive rather than reactive.
“Once clinical guidelines have been structured, organizations will be able to build applications that proactively serve clinical recommendations when they’re relevant,” Wise said. “There are so many use cases for computable guidelines, from point-of-care decision support to prior authorizations and quality measures and reimbursement… the list goes on and on.”
Guideline Central’s solution could have a measurable impact. For example, research indicates that the optimal use of evidence-based heart failure therapies could prevent nearly 68,000 deaths annually in the U.S., while consistent use of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery guidelines reduces hospital stays and complications.
Yet, a 2023 survey found that 65% of physicians cite time constraints as their most significant barrier to guideline adherence, and 87% say access at the point of care would improve compliance.
Reinforcing the value of computable guidelines in practice
While the partnership between Guideline Central and IMO Health is in its early stages, Meghan Wilson, MSN, BSN, RN, Clinical Informatics Specialist at Guideline Central, has already seen how our technology improves the work. After creating a value set manually using ICD-10-CM and SNOMED CT® codes, Wilson found that IMO Health’s solution surfaced roughly four times as many relevant codes in the same amount of time.
“The beautiful part of IMO Health is that you find the codes that we would miss,” Wilson said.
That level of improvement demonstrates how automation can expand human expertise – saving time while improving accuracy. The financial implications are also compelling: in oncology, for example, guideline-aligned decision support has been shown to reduce total costs by roughly 25–40% while improving outcomes.
Wise believes this kind of efficiency is only the beginning. “Working with all of the societies we work with, we’ve got a platform with over a million yearly active users,” he said. “There’s a clear need for guidelines… they literally touch almost everything in healthcare.”
By expanding the role of guidelines and embedding them in-workflow, Guideline Central and IMO Health are helping close the gap between clinical insight and action – ensuring that every healthcare decision is informed, timely, and rooted in evidence.
Interested in reading more customer success stories? Visit our case studies library.
*For sharp-eyed Harry Potter fans, we acknowledge there are only 7 books in the series; however, 8 was the published quote.
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