Australian guidelines for the clinical care of people with COVID-19: Living Guidelines

In the course of separating fact from fiction, at no time in recent history has the need to explore the effects of interventions on a new disease like COVID-19 been more critical. To develop clear recommendations about what we know and what we don’t know, we have established a multi-disciplinary collaboration between researchers and clinicians to provide evidence-based, trustworthy guidance for the treatment of people with COVID-19.

The Taskforce brings together the peak health professional bodies across Australia whose members are providing clinical care to people with COVID-19.

We are undertaking continuous evidence surveillance to identify and rapidly synthesise emerging research in order to provide national, evidence-based guidelines for the clinical care of people with COVID-19. The guidelines address questions that are specific to managing COVID-19 and cover the full disease course across mild, moderate, severe and critical illness.

These are ‘living’ guidelines, updated with new research in near real-time in order to give reliable, up-to-the minute advice to clinicians providing frontline care in this unprecedented global health crisis.

Australia is a world-leader in the development of living guidelines through the work of the Australian Living Evidence Consortium and in partnership with Cochrane, the world’s most trusted provider of health evidence. This considerable expertise has now been deployed to ensure every Australian clinician has access to a single source of trustworthy advice about critical aspects of COVID-19 care.