About CARI Guidelines

MISSION

CARI Guidelines mission is to improve the quality of care and outcomes for patients with kidney disease in Australia & New Zealand by facilitating the development and implementation of trustworthy clinical practice guidelines based on the best available evidence

CARI Guidelines Governance

CARI Guidelines operates as an externally funded research program within the School of Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medicine at the University of Sydney. CARI Guidelines day-to-day operations are overseen by a Scientific Director, who reports to the Head of School at the School of Public Health, The University of Sydney. CARI Guidelines Steering Committee provides oversight regarding strategic direction and priority-setting.

Why have guidelines?

Clinical practice guidelines have proved enormously valuable, and adherence to the recommendations translates directly into benefits for patients through improved outcomes, benefits for practitioners through better quality of care, and benefits for providers through improved cost-effectiveness. Guidelines are considered to reduce the use of unnecessary, ineffective, or harmful interventions and to facilitate the treatment of patients with:

  • maximum chance of benefit
  • minimum risk of harm
  • and at an acceptable cost

Who we are

Guideline development process

More than 100 guideline writers have been involved in researching and writing CARI guidelines. Guideline writers are invited to attend a one-day methods workshop run by the CARI office to help equip them for the task of scanning the literature and writing clinical practice guidelines. This training teaches participants how to critically review and summarise the relevant literature on their topic, how to grade the quality of studies and integrate them into their guidelines, and in general, improves their critical appraisal skills.

The CARI office staff assists writers by conducting systematic literature searches, locating relevant trials, and preparing summary evidence tables for each guideline subtopic.

The procedures and methodology used for guideline development and adaptation can be found below.