Development Status, Challenges, and Strategies of Clinical Practice Guidelines in Traditional Chinese Medicine Orthopedics

Abstract

Clinical practice guidelines can standardize medical behaviors, improve the quality of medical services, rationalize resource allocation, and safeguard the rights of patients. However, all of these are achieved based on the rigorous design, scientific formulation, and standardized reporting of guidelines. With the nation's high attention to the standardization of traditional Chinese medicine, many clinical practice guidelines for traditional Chinese medicine or integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine have been published. Traditional Chinese medicine orthopedics, as a discipline with obvious advantages in specialization in the field of traditional Chinese medicine, is witnessing a rapid increase in the number of clinical practice guidelines, prompting the discipline to gradually move towards standardization, modernization, and internationalization. However, many issues are increasingly emerging in this context, attracting widespread attention from researchers. This article systematically reviews and summarizes the current status and challenges of the development of clinical practice guidelines in orthopedics of traditional Chinese medicine, and proposes targeted strategies. Currently, the development of clinical practice guidelines in orthopedics of traditional Chinese medicine faces many challenges, including inaccurate positioning of clinical problems, a lack of high-quality clinical evidence, insufficient standardization in guideline formulation, a shortage of multidisciplinary talent development, and various issues regarding guideline updating and implementation. In future research, professional societies/associations should strengthen guidance on guideline formulation. Researchers should focus on improving the quality of original research, enhance learning and research in guideline methodology, prioritize guideline updating and adaptation, and promote the dissemination and implementation of guidelines, aiming to develop high-quality guidelines and promote the standardization of orthopedics of traditional Chinese medicine.

Keywords

• orthopedics traumatology (tcm)|clinical practice guidelines|development status|challenges|strategies|review