The aim of this project is to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of an innovative clinical training tool designed to enhance General Practitioners' use of Hypertension guidelines. The tool is named the ‘Guideline Enhancement Tool’ (GET) and is designed to:
- Promote effective use of Hypertension guidelines by General Practitioners.
- Develop clinicians’ decision-making processes related to the management of hypertension.
- Enable the consideration of contextual factors that influence clinical decisions, and generate recommendations to tailor the guidelines to better suit General Practice contexts.
This project is set within the context of relatively low levels of uptake of clinical practice guidelines. The proposed project responds to this need through the GET process. Its impact will be evaluated by through a validated measure of clinical reasoning (The Script Concordance Test) and through focus group discussions. The project aims to improve uptake of hypertension guidelines and could also be extended to other clinical guidelines.
This project will result in enhancing general practitioners' competence in making guidelines-based clinical decisions, and will also enhance the feasibility and usefulness of hypertension guidelines in general practice settings. The GET process has the potential to be extended to enhance clinical-decision-making across a range of clinical disciplines.