HHS Plans to Delete 20 Years of Critical Medical Guidelines Next Week

[babylonsister]

Of course they are.

HHS Plans to Delete 20 Years of Critical Medical Guidelines Next Week
Experts say the database of carefully curated medical guidelines is one of a kind, used constantly by medical professionals, and on July 16 will ‘go dark’ due to budget cuts.
Jon Campbell
07.12.18 5:11 AM ET


The Trump Administration is planning to eliminate a vast trove of medical guidelines that for nearly 20 years has been a critical resource for doctors, researchers and others in the medical community.

Maintained by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ], part of the Department of Health and Human Services, the database is known as the National Guideline Clearinghouse [NGC], and it’s scheduled to “go dark,” in the words of an official there, on July 16.

Medical guidelines like those compiled by AHRQ aren’t something laypeople spend much time thinking about, but experts like Valerie King, a professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Director of Research at the Center for Evidence-based Policy at Oregon Health & Science University, said the NGC is perhaps the most important repository of evidence-based research available.

“Guideline.gov was our go-to source, and there is nothing else like it in the world,” King said, referring to the URL at which the database is hosted, which the agency says receives about 200,000 visitors per month. “It is a singular resource,” King added.

Medical guidelines are best thought of as cheatsheets for the medical field, compiling the latest research in an easy-to use format. When doctors want to know when they should start insulin treatments, or how best to manage an HIV patient in unstable housing — even something as mundane as when to start an older patient on a vitamin D supplement — they look for the relevant guidelines. The documents are published by a myriad of professional and other organizations, and NGC has long been considered among the most comprehensive and reliable repositories in the world.

more...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/hhs-plans-to-delete-20-years-of-critical-medical-guidelines-next-week?ref=home

[Bettie]

1. I was going to ask why they would do this

then I remembered, normally an administration gets the best and brightest to run things, this one gets the worst and dimmist (yeah, that's not really a word, but hey, these days?) do to the worst thing they can. This is something that costs them NOTHING and yet, they have to get rid of it.

[Snotcicles]

21. Phase1. Phase2 is locking up intellectuals and dissidents. nt

[Guilded Lilly]

2. Out of their freaking minds. Can this not be blocked by anyone with an ounce of brain matter??????

[Pacifist Patriot]

3. If I could have just one morning with less than 12 WTF moments, that would be great.

[bronxiteforever]

16. This +100000

[FM123]

27. Well said!

[Nay]

32. Wouldn't it?? Every day I feel like throwing myself off a cliff. nt

[pazzyanne]

4. Don't worry, folks.

The tRump administration is bringing back a "tried and true", one fix cure for everything. The page will convert to "How to Use Leeches to the Best Advantage in Medical Treatment". Problem solved.

[Vinca]

5. How much can it possibly cost to keep this online? Probably less than a NJ golf trip.

This is for the purpose of disruption and nothing more.

[gademocrat7]

6. Another destructive act

There is no regard for the health and welfare of people in this country. Shameful!

[The Blue Flower]

7. The intention is to do harm to the American people

After all, he gets his performance review this week.

[sellitman]

8. Putin is laughing his ass off

I'm not.

It's horrific.

Every day a new attack.

Meanwhile the world is worried about Stormy Daniels and The First Hooker's dress at Nato.

[Blue_Adept]

9. It's a useful repository for figuring out malpractice suits as well

Since you have a lot of strong must-follow kinds of guidelines. The medical side uses it a lot but so does the legal side.

[Maggiemayhem]

12. Good point..

[ragemage]

10. Truly WTF...but we should not be surprised

This is the mission statement from the web site:
"NGC supports AHRQ's mission to produce evidence to make health care safer, higher quality, more accessible, equitable, and affordable by providing objective, detailed information on clinical practice guidelines, and to further their dissemination, implementation, and use in order to inform health care decisions."

Notice some words in there that most GOPers don't like?

Also to upset you further dear readers...the sister web site goes dark as well:
https://www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov/
This site's mission statement is basically the same but it provides measurements and charts/graphs on many, many topics. To give you a sample:
NQMC:010524 OCT 2015 Comprehensive diabetes care: percentage of members 18 to 75 years of age with diabetes (type 1 and type 2) who had an eye exam (retinal) performed.

Truly amazing. This site cannot take up much space and how much does it truly cost for admin and maintenance?

[PatSeg]

11. Oh this is interesting

Apparently some republicans probably don't care care for the resource as it can affect their donors bottom line.

Underscoring how medical research like that maintained by the NGC can be politicized, AHRQ drew the ire of then-congressmember Tom Price in 2016 when it published a study critical of a drug manufactured by one of his campaign donors. According to ProPublica, one of Price’s aides emailed “at least half a dozen times” asking the agency to pull the critical research down. Price was the first director of HHS, AHRQ’s parent agency, under the Trump Administration, before resigning under pressure last year over his spending on chartered flights.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/hhs-plans-to-delete-20-years-of-critical-medical-guidelines-next-week?ref=home

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

13. I'm hoping a Patriot has copies of all of them by now. We can slap it right back up.

Question is...what is the reason they're scrubbing all these data banks? They don't own them. WE DO> It's paid for by taxpayer spending.

[ehrnst]

14. I really hope that they can find a reliable host for this information this week. (nt)

[anarch]

15. the Christofascist idiots would delete 1,000 years worth of scientific knowledge if they could

science/medicine is the work of the devil!

Seriously, these people are really fucking stupid. But I guess when you're anticipating (and in many ways working to bring about) the "end times," you maybe don't make the most rational decisions.

[Nay]

33. Yes, they would. It's the Library of Alexandria all over again. In spades. nt

[Bad Thoughts]

17. Time to pray the death away

No more evidence based medicine.

[HipChick]

18. all this should be archived somewhere...

[PatrickforO]

19. Thanks for posting.

Yet another attack on another front from Trump's wrecking crew.

I sent an email to both my US Senators. Not that it will do much, but you know, it might help. I mean, why in the heck do we spend SO MUCH MONEY on weapons that kill and maim, give billionaires and corporations massive tax cuts, and then allow something like this, that actually helps people, to 'go dark' on the spurious contention that HHS lacks the money to keep it up?

What is with that? What does that say about us? We all know what it says about Trump, of course, but what does it say about us as a people?

[dalton99a]

20. Trump cannot find $1.2 million in his budget to fund this?

Fucking bullshit. What a goddamn asshole!

[bitterross]

22. Here is the reason they're doing it. Much as I suspected.

From the article:

That gatekeeping role has sometimes made AHRQ a target. The agency was nearly eliminated shortly after its establishment, in the mid-90s, when it endorsed non-surgical interventions for back pain, a position that angered the North American Spine Society, a trade group representing spine surgeons. A subsequent campaign led to significant funding losses for AHRQ, and since then, the agency as a whole has been a perennial target for Republicans who have argued that its work is duplicated at other federal agencies.

Once again, this is being doing to benefit corporations and their big donors. Nothing to do with being pro-life or for the common man.

On Edit: They have to make sure there is no independent, non-biased source of information available to contradict the claims of the drug makers, the medical device manufacturers, the quacks and others who are happy to take people's money.

[bucolic_frolic]

23. I would be alarmed

if I were certain my doctors would have used this database when they were in doubt, but that's a stretch because they never doubted their judgment.

nonetheless data is what drives improvement. absence of data is devolution. Newt will be happy.

[woundedkarma]

24. When in doubt, it's probably about money

My best guess is someone figures they can make a commercial version and sell it. They complained to trump admin or rethugs in charge and so bam. .there goes the funding. More likely rethugs than trump, he isn't responsible for every evil thing that happens (just a large majority).

At only 1.2million a year I'm surprised nobody has stepped forward though.

[packman]

25. woundedkarma, You get to shout out "BINGO"

Someone, some organization will archive all those files and make it a "fee" file site for doctors, patients, hospitals and research groups.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

26. K&Fuckin' R!!

[Still In Wisconsin]

28. Well, essentially Trump voters wanted to "burn it all down."

That’s pretty much what’s happening.

[bdamomma]

35. that is Bannon's dream too.

he is a Leninist. Too dismantle all government agencies.

[rurallib]

29. Same day Trump reports to his boss

probably just a coincidence

[WinstonSmith4740]

30. So we're doing it again.

We're burning down the Library of Alexandria.
https://ehistory.osu.edu/articles/burning-library-alexandria

[Hoyt]

31. To be fair, the parent organization has been facing cuts since 1994 including under Clinton & Obama.

Most -- if not all, these studies and guidelines -- are available elsewhere including CDC, etc. Many of the functions of the AHRQ are supposed to be transferred to NIH. Supposedly, there are government agencies that have expressed interest in taking over the guideline datebase. Apparently, the AHRQ made the decision to stop funding the database based upon cuts to AHRQ.

On the other hand, the budget for this datebase is not a lot of money (like $1.2 milliion or so) and it seems to me a comprehensive review of the whole system for medical guidelines should be undertaken to further streamline the system without any chance of degrading it.

Some articles:

https://www.guidelinecentral.com/alternatives-to-ahrqs-national-guidelines-clearinghouse/

https://www.aafp.org/news/government-medicine/20180627guidelineclearinghouse.html

https://www.aafp.org/patient-care/clinical-recommendations/cpg-manual.html

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/04/23/national-guidelines-clearinghouse-to-shut-down-in-july-but-receiving-stakeholder-interest-to-carry-on/

[bdamomma]

34. is there anyway this could be saved at all

https://www.guideline.gov/


there is valuable information on here.

[Blue_Tires]

36. Yep, just the action those middle-class rural whites voted him in for

[bdamomma]

37. I managed to send an e mail to Ms. Hix about taking this site offline.

This was the response that I received by e mail.

Good afternoon,

Thank you for your email about the closing of NGC/guideline.gov and the value it has had to your work. The difficult decision to not continue to fund NGC was an Agency decision based on strategic priorities and lack of funds to continue the contract that supports the operations of NGC. However, the Agency knows that many individuals and organizations have built routines and processes around the presence of NGC, so we are exploring a path(s) to sustain NGC or some evolution of NGC and will continue to do so even after the site is offline. This decision does not suggest lack of endorsement of these guidelines.

Regards,
Francis

Francis D. Chesley, Jr., M.D.
Acting Deputy Director
Director, Office of Extramural Research, Education, and Priority Populations
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
5600 Fishers Lane, Room 06N16
Rockville, MD 20857
office: [phone]
e-mail: [e-mail]