News: ECRI resuscitates healthcare clearinghouse data

The Emergency Care Research Institute (ECRI) has announced that it will take over the now defunct National Guidelines Clearinghouse, which was shut down last week during a round of  governmental budget cuts.

Karen M. Schoelles, MD, a senior director at ECRI, said that the nonprofit stepped in right after the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) announced that the Clearinghouse website would be shut down, according to HealthLeaders Media.

ECRI has the opportunity to replicate much of the Clearinghouse’s evidence-based medical research and guidelines because it has played an ongoing role in the development and maintenance of the database since its inception in 1998.

“Much of the information will be similar, but our site will not be a replica of the site created for AHRQ,” she told HealthLeaders Media. “We are doing this because we believe the work we did for AHRQ was valuable to the healthcare community. ECRI’s mission is to advance evidence-based healthcare globally, and we see this as a way to support that mission.”

ECRI is developing the replacement database without any input from AHRQ, according to HealthLeaders Media, and they intend to simplify the presentation on the website from its previous state.

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in HealthLeaders Media. To read ACDIS’ coverage of the Clearinghouse shutdown, click here. To read the statement from the AHRQ on the shutdown, click here.