Proceedings of the Guideline Workshop 2019 – Strategies for the optimization of guideline processes in diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and kidney diseases

The Guideline Workshop 2019, held in October 2019 in Munich, Germany, had the purpose of facilitating discussion on strategies for optimization of guideline processes in diabetes amongst a group of representatives of renown national and international societies in the field of diabetes, cardiology, and nephrology. Results of this panel’s discussions are presented in this manuscript and comprise a variety of suggestions for improving the quality and usability of guidelines, as well as to accelerate the development and responsiveness of guidelines to newly published, relevant data from clinical trials such as cardiovascular outcome trials in diabetes mellitus. These include, but are not limited to, recommendations to optimize presentation of content in guidelines, use of the GRADE-approach to rating the quality of evidence to harmonize guidelines, and utilization of digital health technologies to accelerate, streamline, and optimize communication on relevant data and development of clinical guidelines and necessary updates, while reducing costs. Recognizing that achieving alignment in guideline development among various medical organizations will be a long-term process, representatives from cross-sectional medical organizations relevant to cardio-renal metabolic disease and experts in guideline methodology will work together in the future. Among other activities, it is planned to continue the activity and organize a Guideline Workshop in 2020.