Background Quality improvement in health care requires the development and use of performance measures (PMs) that address health care processes, outcomes and patient perspectives. PMs are increasingly being developed explicitly from clinical guideline (CG) recommendations. There are no agreed international standards for the development of guidelines based PM. The development of such standards has been agreed by the G-I-N-PM Working Group (PMWG).

Objectives To develop a core set of standards for guidelines based PMs.

Methods • Systematic literature review of PM development methods • Identification of core components of guidelines based PM development • Development of draft standards for each core component • DELPHI process (at least 2 rounds) within the PMWG group to develop final set of standards

Results Essential components identified are: CG selection, extraction of CG recommendations, development of PMs from CG recommendations, assessment of potential PMs, intended use of PMs, piloting and review of PMs. The final agreed standards will be presented.

Discussion These guideline based PM standards will be refined and validated in future G-I-N PMWG projects.

Implications for Guideline Developers/Users This set of core standards for guideline based PM development offers guidance for PM developers on consensus based good practice. The resulting PM development process may also guide guideline developers to formulate more specific and measurable CG recommendations.