KARACHI: Highlighting Pakistan’s unique healthcare challenges, experts at a two-day symposium organised by the Aga Khan University (AKU) called for developing ethically transparent evidence-based guidelines to help standardise local clinical practices.

A flagship conference of the university, the 25th National Health Sciences Research Symposium (NHSRS) brought together national and international experts to further the dialogue on evidence-based medical guidelines.

They described the event both timely and relevant, given the pressing need for contextually relevant treatment for diseases, and said that it would help build upon the existing work done by AKU’s Centre for Clinical Best Practices (CCBP).

According to speakers, the lack of standardised clinical practices in Pakistan is a challenge and that reliance on global guidelines and individual physician discretion hinders experts’ ability to address the country’s unique healthcare problems.

Experts stress need for targeted medical interventions at AKU symposium

They also pointed out that crucial factors such as race, ethnicity, financial resources, and other social determinants of health in a country of over 250 million people have the potential to introduce biases into representative datasets, leading to variability in local clinical care.

Hence, the experts believed, this challenging landscape underscored the critical need for targeted interventions and screening measures which were lacking in international guideline sources.

“The move from disease-oriented guidelines to community-oriented contextual guidelines is the key but comes with its own set of challenges that need to be addressed. The system also needs to have its maintenance and improvement mechanisms,” said Prof Maj General Sohail Sabir, who is a senior nephrologist at CMH Rawalpindi, during his plenary talk on challenges and their solutions in the development of contextual guidelines.

Prof Mahmood Ayyaz, vice chancellor of King Edward Medical University, Lahore and the keynote speaker, emphasised the importance of evidence-based guidelines in clinical practice and the need to close the gap in global health disparities.

Prof Dr Javed Akram, health minister of Punjab and president of Pakistan Society of Internal Medicine, provided crucial insights from his work as a medical professional as well as a government health official.

“Health disparities exist around the world. But, the issues plaguing Pakistan are varied and many. The disease burden is alarming, and resources constrained with overwhelming volumes, so prevention is as important as the cure,” he said, while underscoring the need for clinical guidelines well rooted in research that integrated disease and patient oriented approaches.

The speakers also discussed the work carried out by CCBP that collaborated with over 150 specialists for over four years to review, adapt, and create transparent and robust guidelines tailored to the local context, using an internationally recognised system.

Earlier, Dr Faisal Sultan, former special assistant to the prime minister on health, appreciated the AKU’s efforts and said that the process for development of medical guidelines was being done in a structured and international validated manner.

The speakers included Prof Khalid Masood Gondal, president College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan, Prof Rizwan Taj, president Pakistan Medical and Dental Council and Dr Bushra Mirza, member Research, Development and Innovation, Higher Education Commission.

The symposium consisted of presentations on guideline development for common ailments such as diabetes and hypertension, along with robust panel discussions on the impact of guidelines on healthcare, oral presentations of shortlisted abstracts and poster presentations.

Published in Dawn, February 22nd, 2024