Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons guidelines development: health equity update to standard operating procedure

Introduction The SAGES Guidelines Committee creates evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. Due to existing health disparities, recommendations made in these guidelines may have different impacts on different populations. The updates to our standard operating procedure described herein will allow us to produce well-designed guidelines that take these disparities into account and potentially reduce health inequities. Methods This paper outlines updates to the SAGES Guidelines Committee Standard Operating Procedure in order to incorporate issues of heath equity into our guideline development process with the goal of minimizing downstream health disparities. Results SAGES has developed an evidence-based, standardized approach to consider issues of health equity throughout the guideline development process to allow physicians to better counsel patients and make research recommendations to better address disparities. Conclusion Societies that promote guidelines within their organization must make an intentional effort to prevent the widening of health disparities as a result of their recommendations. The updates to the Guidelines Committee Standard Operating Procedure will hopefully lead to increased attention to these disparities and provide specific recommendations to reduce them.