Weekly updating of guideline recommendations was feasible: the Australian National COVID-19 clinical evidence Taskforce

OBJECTIVES: To investigate how quickly evidence was incorporated into the Australian living guidelines for COVID-19 during the first 12 months of the pandemic. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: For each study concerning drug therapies included in the guideline from April 3, 2020 to April 1, 2021, we extracted the publication date of the study, and the guideline version the study was included in. We analyzed two subgroups of studies as follows: those published in high impact factor journals and those with 100 or more participants. RESULTS: In the first year, we published 37 major versions of the guidelines, incorporating 129 studies that investigated 48 drug therapies informing 115 recommendations. The median time from first publication of a study to incorporation in the guideline was 27 days (interquartile range [IQR], 16 to 44), ranging from 9 to 234 days. For the 53 studies in the highest impact factor journals, the median was 20 days (IQR 15 to 30), and for the 71 studies with 100 or more participants the median was 22 days (IQR 15 to 36). CONCLUSION: Developing and sustaining living guidelines where evidence is rapidly incorporated is a resource- and time-intensive undertaking; however, this study demonstrates that it is feasible, even over a long period.