Skip to main content
A Singapore Government Agency Website How to identify
Official website links end with .gov.sg
Secure websites use HTTPS
Look for a lock () or https:// as an added precaution. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
Government officials will never ask you to transfer money or disclose bank log-in details over a phone call.

Call the 24/7 ScamShield Helpline at 1799 if you are unsure if something is a scam.

Agency for Care Effectiveness

G4G Resources

ACE's Guidelines for Guidelines (G4G) resources are intended to equip guideline developers with knowledge to meet the nine minimum standards to create evidence-based, high-quality guidelines.

Last updated 5 June 2026
Add your alt text here

G4G self-appraisal checklist

Refer regularly to the G4G self-appraisal checklist (opens in new tab), which details how to attain G4G standards and serves as the basis for ACE's methodological validation.

G4G toolkit

Whether you're new to guideline development or looking to strengthen your approach, this curated G4G toolkit summarises relevant resources and materials aligned with internationally recognised quality criteria.

To get an overview of G4G standards and their meaning, read the G4G guide (opens in new tab) and watch the webinar “Building Trust through Rigour: Essential Standards for Developing High-Quality Clinical Guidelines”. (opens in new tab)

Click below on individual G4G areas and explore the recommended resources.  

Scoping

Select a relevant and useful scope

Developing NICE guidelines: the manual – The scope (opens in new tab)is a useful and comprehensive resource to better understand how to focus your guideline scope. For further reading, please refer to the resources below.

Additional reading materials:

Establish a multidisciplinary expert group

Establish an appropriate multidisciplinary group with clearly stated role(s) in the guideline development

The composition of the multidisciplinary group will depend on several factors, such as the guideline topic and scope, and may vary across guideline organisations. Below, we listed useful reading and resources to guide you when appointing your guideline panel:

Conflicts of interest

Collect and manage conflicts of interest

Each guideline organisation has its own conflict of interest (COI) policies and management approaches, reflecting different organisational priorities and governance structures. The Guideline International Network (GIN) has published core principles for disclosure and management of COI in guidelines in this useful paper: Guidelines International Network: Principles for Disclosure of Interests and Management of Conflicts in Guidelines | Annals of Internal Medicine (opens in new tab).

Other references and examples of how reputable guideline bodies approach COI declaration and management are listed below:

Evidence to Recommendation (EtR) framework

Use evidence to guide recommendations, underpinned by a pre-determined evidence-to-decision framework

The “GRADE Handbook – Going from evidence to recommendations (opens in new tab)” is one of the most comprehensive and commonly used resource guiding how to formulate recommendations from evidence and serves as an excellent starting point.

Other useful readings are listed below, including approaches to the evidence-to-decision/recommendation (EtD/R) step used by reputable guideline bodies:

If you are new to GRADE, the GRADEpro (opens in new tab) Platform can help supporting the EtR process and is helpful in standardising your approach.

ACE regularly publishes EtRs alongside our guidelines; here’s an example from the osteoporosis ACG (opens in new tab). Our EtR approach has been presented during the 2025 AVBC conference, you can watch the video here (opens in new tab).

Systematic synthesis

Use systematic literature review methods for synthesising evidence

The “Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions (opens in new tab)” offers comprehensive and professional guidance to systematically synthesise evidence and serves as an essential reference for this standard .

 Below, other useful readings are listed, including evidence synthesis methods used by reputable guideline bodies:

Several tools exist to assess risk of bias. Here are some commonly used ones:

Implementability features

Include implementability features

Successful guidelines go beyond providing evidence-based recommendations—they are designed to be easily implemented in practice. While approaches vary across organisations, the resources below describe how to integrate implementability features throughout the development process, from planning to publication.

Consensus methodology

Use a consensus methodology

Each guideline organisation employs its own approach to achieve consensus. Below, we listed useful readings to better understand the various methods, including the consensus approaches applied by reputable guideline bodies:

 If you decide to apply the RAND/UCLA consensus methodology, ACE has developed an in-house template for collating ratings and automatically calculate agreement – click here (opens in new tab).

External review

Seek external review before publication

Various stakeholders can be engaged for external review processes, depending on the guideline scope, audience and organisational requirements. The resources below provide guidance on how to effectively seek and manage external feedback before publication, including approaches used by reputable guideline bodies:

Updating guidelines

Plan for updating the guideline

The resources below provide guidance on key considerations for determining when and how to update your guideline.

A note from ACE – methods for developing the G4G toolkit: a comprehensive search for relevant published articles and methodological documents across academic databases and grey literature sources was conducted. Focused searches were performed in PubMed, Cochrane Library, Google, and Google Scholar using targeted keyword combinations without date restrictions. The searches were conducted in December 2025. Only articles published in English were included in the search.

Two authors independently conducted the searches and screened for relevant methodological articles covering different stages of guideline development. Additional targeted searches were performed across relevant professional guideline organisations and their associated websites. The G4G toolkit will be maintained as ‘live’ document, regularly updating the information with additional resources as needed.

G4G video resources

  • AMS 2025 Webinar Series on Practice Guidelines: Building Trust Through Rigour: Essential Standards for Developing High-Quality Clinical Guidelines [26 Nov 2025]

  • AVBC 2025 Pre-conference Workshop: Bridging the gap in developing trustworthy clinical guidelines: Linking evidence to recommendations [16 Oct 2025]

  • VBHC 2024 Pre-conference Workshop: Best Practices for Clinical Guidelines Development [22 Aug 2024]

AMS 2025 Webinar Series on Practice Guidelines: Building Trust Through Rigour: Essential Standards for Developing High-Quality Clinical Guidelines

In collaboration with AMS, Director (ETP) and Senior Lead Specialist (ETP) explore the importance of using standardised approaches to guideline development to ensure rigour and successful implementation of guidelines in Singapore. This video covers a broad overview of the nine G4G standards.

Thumbnail for Building Trust Thru Rigour: Essential Standards for Developing High-Quality Clin Guidelines

AVBC 2025 Pre-conference Workshop: Bridging the gap in developing trustworthy clinical guidelines: Linking evidence to recommendations

Join ACE’s Evidence to Practice division as they walk through the use of evidence to recommendation frameworks to structure the best available evidence and provide transparency in decision making. This video addresses G4G standard 4 – Use evidence to guide recommendations, underpinned by a pre-determined evidence-to-decision framework.

Thumbnail for Bridging the gap in developing trustworthy clinical guidelines: Linking evidence to recommendations

VBHC 2024 Pre-conference Workshop: Best Practices for Clinical Guidelines Development

Re-visit Professor Zachary Munn's workshop on best practices for clinical guidelines development, which took place at the Value-Based Healthcare Conference 2024.

Thumbnail for VBHC 2024 Pre-conference Workshop: Best Practices for Clinical Guidelines Development