1.Project Overview
The EBM and Guidelines Promotion Project (Minds) aims to improve the quality of healthcare by disseminating high-quality clinical practice guidelines to support decision-making by patients and healthcare professionals.
Specifically, we provide informational support to our users through our website and other means, including clinical practice guidelines and related information. This enables patients and healthcare professionals to share information about treatments that are considered to have sufficient scientific basis, and to choose the best treatment based on mutual agreement, considering the patient’s values and wishes, ethical viewpoints as a healthcare professional, social constraints, and other factors.
“Minds” stands for “Medical Information Distribution Service” and is used as the common name for this project.
Minds is built on three pillars: (1) support for the development of clinical practice guidelines, (2) evaluation, selection, and disclosure of clinical practice guidelines, and (3) promotion of utilization of clinical practice guidelines.
Minds operate the “Minds Guideline Library” a clinical practice guideline database website, providing an environment where anyone can search and view clinical practice guidelines and patient version of clinical practice guidelines via the Internet free of charge.
Our History（As of December 2023）
| 2001 | December | Japan Agency for Health Care Excellence launched “EBM database project” |
|---|---|---|
| 2002 | April | Established “EBM Medical Information Service Center” |
| October | The 1st EBM Research Forum was held (held annually since then) | |
| 2004 | May | Minds website opened to public Started publishing clinical practice guidelines on the website for healthcare professionals |
| 2005 | April | Started publishing patient version of clinical practice guidelines developed by academic society on the website The 1st Minds Seminar was held (held annually since then) Joined the Guidelines International Network (G-I-N) as an organizational member |
| 2006 | October | The 1st Consultation Meeting of the Clinical Practice Guideline Development Group was held (held annually since then) |
| 2008 | September | Minds website renewal |
| 2011 | February | Launched English Website Started publishing English version of clinical practice guidelines on the website |
| April | The EBM and Clinical Practice Guideline Project was developed and continued as a project commissioned by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (called “EBM [Evidence-Based Medicine] Promotion Project”) from a research project funded by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Science Research Grants [from FY2011 to the present]. | |
| August | Participated in the Guidelines International Network (G-I-N) Conference (participated every year since then) | |
| 2012 | February | Minds website renewal |
| October | Began participating in International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua) | |
| 2013 | May | The 1st Clinical Practice Guidelines Development Workshop was held (held annually since then) |
| 2014 | March | Published “Minds Clinical Practice Guideline Development Manual ver. 1.0” |
| April | Issued “Minds Handbook for Guideline Development 2014” | |
| May | Launched “GUIDE”, Clinical Practice Guideline Development Support System | |
| 2015 | August | Launched “Minds Mobile App” |
| 2016 | March | Minds website renewal (top page) |
| November | Started publishing ”Examples of the Use Case of Clinical Practice Guidelines” on the website | |
| 2017 | May | Started operating the general consultation desk for clinical guideline development support Published “Easy-to-Understand Guide to Clinical Practice Guidelines (Part 1, 2, and 3)” on the website |
| July | Minds website renewal (integrating “Minds Mobile App” functions) | |
| December | Published “Minds Manual for Guideline Development 2017” | |
| 2018 | March | Published “Information for the Patients and Public” page on the website Started publishing “Stories of the Experience of Patients and Public Involvement in Clinical Practice Guidelines Development Process” on the website |
| April | Started trial of the pre-publication-evaluation of clinical practice guidelines | |
| November | Started operating “Clinical Practice Guideline Registry” of clinical practice guidelines information under development | |
| 2019 | March | Established “Minds Tokyo GRADE Center” Minds web site renewal (implement mobile-first concepts) |
| April | Started operating the pre-publication-evaluation of clinical practice guidelines | |
| July | Published “Minds Tokyo GRADE Center” page on the website Published “Q&A for the Patients and Public” page on the website | |
| November | Lecture of commemorating the establishment of Minds Tokyo GRADE Center was held | |
| 2020 | March | Published “Utilization and Evaluating the Effectiveness of Clinical Practice Guidelines” page on the website |
| 2021 | March | Published “Minds Clinical Practice Guideline Development Manual 2020 ver. 3.0″ |
| December | Published “Provision of Information on COVID-19” page on the website | |
| 2023 | December | Minds web site renewal（replacement of entire system） |
2.Organization
The Department of EBM and Guidelines, established within the Japan Council for Quality Health Care, is responsible for the overall operation of the project. The project is supervised by an executive director appointed by the Chief Executive, and the Secretary-General assumes the role of Accounting Manager.
To facilitate project implementation, several committees have been established under the executive director’s supervision: the Steering Committee, the Guideline Selection Committee, the Guideline Development Support Committee, the Guideline Implementation Committee, and the Guideline Evaluation Expert Subcommittee. These committees are responsible for planning, managing progress, and evaluating the project.
The roles of the steering committee, the various subcommittees, and the expert subcommittee are outlined as follows.
Committees and Subcommittees
- Steering Committee
The Steering Committee, consisting of EBM experts, healthcare providers, patients, citizens, and other external experts, deliberates on the management policy and content of the project. - Guideline Selection Committee
The Guideline Selection Committee primarily composed of external experts, discusses the evaluation, selection, and disclosure of clinical practice guidelines. - Guideline Development Support Committee
The Guideline Development Support Committee composed of external experts, provides supports for developing clinical practice guidelines. - Guideline Implementation Committee
The Guideline Implementation Committee composed of external experts, discusses efforts to promote the use of clinical practice guidelines. - Guideline Evaluation Expert Subcommittee
The Guideline Evaluation Expert Subcommittee evaluates the clinical practice guidelines with the evaluation tools (AGREEII) and prepares reports to provide feedback on the evaluation results.
3.Minds Tokyo GRADE Center
The Minds Tokyo GRADE Center was established by the Japan Council for Quality Health Care in March 2019 to promote the GRADE approach in Japan.
Its main activities include:
- Conducting seminars and workshops to disseminate the GRADE approach
- Offering proposals on developing clinical practice guidelines in Japan, including the GRADE approach
- Contributing to the development of the GRADE approach
