Historically, quality standards for medical guidelines have been established by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and guidelines meeting these criteria were posted on the National Clearing House for Guidelines website (Guidelines.gov). Guidelines are generally written by Medical Societies and are not to be confused with Standards of Care. They are designed to facilitate patient care, but not to dictate the care of any given patient in the community. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) also maintains guidelines, and these are designed for disease surveillance and public health purposes.
In 2006 the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) published guidelines for Lyme Disease. In 2015 another medical society, The International Lyme and Associated Disease Society (ILADS) did the same. IDSA guidelines fell short of the IOM standards and were removed, but the ILADS guidelines remained. Not long after, the entire government enterprise lost federal funding, and guidelines are no longer being reviewed by a central government agency. The government has set up a website to provide access to the legacy guidelines of the National Guideline Clearinghouse. Information previously available on www.guideline.gov are maintained on Legacy Guidelines. The Lyme guidelines are no longer there. Guideline Central is a website maintained by the American Medical Association which seeks to aggregate guidelines, but it, too, lacks the Lyme Guidelines of 2015. In fact, the internet archive, www.web.archive.org no longer has them.
Currently, the ILADS guidelines are the only ones meeting IOM standards. On June 26, 2019, IDSA published a proposed set of guidelines. They are mandated to provide a 45-day period (ending August 10, 2019) for comments from the public before officially releasing them.
- History: where I wrote National Clearing House for Guidelines website (Guidelines.gov).
Should read: National Guidelines Clearinghouse website (guidelines.gov)
- The International Lyme and Associated Disease Society (ILADS) wrote guidelines which were accepted by the Clearinghouse in 2014.
Should read
The International Lyme and Associated Disease Society (ILADS) wrote guidelines which were accepted by the Clearinghouse in 2014
- IDSA guidelines fell short of the IOM standards and were removed,
Should read:
IDSA guidelines were removed by the Clearinghouse in 2015