Current status and future plans of Nuclear Medicine Procedure Guidelines in Central and Eastern European EANM member societies compared with those in other EANM member societies

Abstract

The main aim of the EANM Task Group on Quality Assurance and Standardisation is to develop harmonised clinical procedures that are accepted within Europe. In order to achieve an evidence-based analysis of guidelines this Task Group conducted a survey by means of a questionnaire in the 27 EANM member societies in July 1999, which investigated the current status of national guidelines in EANM member societies, specification of the cover and level of these national guidelines, and future desires for national, EANM and SNM guidelines. A reanalysis of the data of this survey was undertaken to evaluate the differences and similarities between 9 Central and Eastern European (CEE) EANM member societies and 18 non-CEE (mainly Western European) EANM member societies with regard to the aforementioned investigated topics. The results of this reanalysis show only minor differences between CEE and non-CEE EANM member societies with regard to the aforementioned topics. Both in CEE and in non-CEE EANM member societies, there is limited coverage of existing guidelines, leaving most procedures uncovered. Although the infrastructure for guideline development is present in both groups, the main explanation for this similarity is the limited advancement of the guideline development process, in both the CEE and non-CEE EANM member societies. Both groups are willing and ready for guideline development at the EANM level, with more concordant than discordant reasons for this. This allows a synchronous implementation of procedure guidelines in CEE EANM member societies.