ECRI Institute has received a $2.4 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to provide the healthcare community with free access to clinical practice guidelines. With this grant, the ECRI Guidelines Trust, a repository of evidence-based guideline briefs and scorecards, is available to the public at no cost.

Since its launch in November, more than 4,000 clinicians, medical librarians, and academic researchers from 60 countries around the world have registered for free public access, ECRI officials say. Further, ECRI already has more than 700 guidelines represented on the site through collaboration with developers whose guidelines meet ECRI’s inclusion criteria. The Guidelines Trust currently contains expertly vetted briefs, Trust Scorecards, and links to full-text guidelines.

“To help providers apply high standards of clinical excellence, we designed our Trust Scorecards with a five-star rating system that makes it easy to see how the guidelines comply with Institute of Medicine standards,” says Karen M. Schoelles, MD, SM, FACP, vice president for clinical excellence and safety at ECRI Institute. “This goes beyond the rigor and transparency that we had provided in the National Guideline Clearinghouse.”

Guidelines from nearly 60 developers, medical specialty societies, and other healthcare organizations are already included at the site, which will continue to grow. Moreover, ECRI’s conflict-of-interest policies ensure evaluations are unbiased, fact-based, and free from industry influence.

“We are pleased that our funding enables ECRI Institute to not only provide open access to this crucial patient care guidance, but enables them to continuously innovate,” says Diane Schweitzer, acting chief program officer, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. “ECRI Institute is respected around the world for their work in improving the safety and quality of patient care and is highly qualified to lead this initiative.”

ECRI Institute developed the Guidelines Trust after funding cuts forced the shutdown of the National Guideline Clearinghouse, which ECRI Institute developed and maintained for 20 years.