National Institutes of Health COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel: Perspectives and Lessons Learned
Roy M. Gulick, Alice K. Pau, Eric S. Daar, Laura Evans, Rajesh T. Gandhi, Pablo Tebas, Renée Ridzon, Henry Masur, H. Clifford Lane, NIH COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel, Adaora A. Adimora, Jason Baker, Lisa Baumann Kreuziger, Roger Bedimo, Pamela S. Belperio, Anoopindar Bhalla, Timothy Burgess, Danielle Campbell, Stephen V. Cantrill, Kara W Chew, Kathleen Chiotos, Craig Coopersmith, Richard T. Davey, Amy Dzierba, Derek Eisnor, Gregory Eschenauer, Joseph Francis, John Gallagher, David V. Glidden, Neil Goldenberg, Birgit Grund, Alison Han, Erica Hardy, Carly Harrison, Lauren Henderson, Elizabeth S. Higgs, Carl R Hinkson, Brenna L. Hughes, Steve Johnson, Marla J. Keller, Arthur Kim, Richard Knight, Safia Kuriakose, Jeffrey Lennox, Andrea Lerner, Mitchell Levy, Jonathan Li, Christine E. MacBrayne, Greg Martin, Nandita Nadig, Martha Nason, Pragna Patel, Andrew T. Pavia, Michael Proschan, Grant Schulert, Nitin Seam, Virginia Sheikh, Steven Simpson, Kanal Singh, Susan Swindells, Phyllis C. Tien, Timothy M. Uyeki, Alpana Waghmare, Cameron Wolfe, Jinoos Yazdany, Judith Aberg, Renée Ridzon, Roy M. Gulick, Alice K. Pau, Eric S. Daar, Laura Evans, Rajesh T. Gandhi, Pablo Tebas, Henry Masur, H. Clifford Lane, Adaora A. Adimora, Jason Baker, Lisa Baumann Kreuziger, Roger Bedimo, Pamela S. Belperio, Anoopindar Bhalla, Timothy Burgess, Danielle Campbell, Stephen V. Cantrill, Kara W Chew, Kathleen Chiotos, Craig Coopersmith, Richard T. Davey, Amy Dzierba, Derek Eisnor, Gregory Eschenauer, Joseph Francis, John Gallagher, David V. Glidden, Neil Goldenberg, Birgit Grund, Alison Han, Erica Hardy, Carly Harrison, Lauren Henderson
Abstract
DESCRIPTION: In March 2020, the White House Coronavirus Task Force determined that clinicians in the United States needed expert treatment guidelines to optimally manage patients with COVID-19, a potentially life-threatening disease caused by a new pathogen for which no specific treatments were known to be effective. METHODS: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services requested that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) take the lead in expeditiously convening a panel of experts to create "living" guidelines that would be widely accessible and capable of frequent updating as important new information became available. RECOMMENDATIONS: The purpose of this article is to expand on the experiences of the NIH COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel (the Panel) over the past 4 years, summarize the Panel's final recommendations for COVID-19, highlight some challenges and unanswered questions about COVID-19 management, and inform future responses to public health emergencies. The Panel was formed in March 2020, and the first iteration of the guidelines was released in April 2020. Now that the public health emergency has ended, the NIH COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines have sunsetted. This role will now fall to professional societies and organizations, such as the American College of Physicians, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, and the World Health Organization, all of which have been active in this area.