SKILL.md
Clinical Guidelines Search & Retrieval
Guideline Hierarchy
Not all guidelines carry equal weight. Evaluate sources in this order:
- NICE and WHO — Evidence-graded, regularly updated, rigorous systematic review process. NICE guidelines include explicit recommendation strength (e.g., "offer" vs "consider").
- Society guidelines (AHA, ADA, NCCN, SIGN) — Expert-consensus panels within a specialty. May lag behind the latest evidence by 1-3 years. Strong within their domain but narrower scope.
- Aggregator databases (TRIP, OpenAlex) — Index guidelines from multiple societies. Good for breadth and discovery, but you must verify the original source.
- Literature databases (PubMed, EuropePMC) — Return guideline-related publications, not curated guideline text. Useful as a fallback, not a primary source.
Always check publication date. A 2015 guideline may be superseded by a 2024 update. When presenting results, include the year prominently and note if newer guidance may exist.
COMPUTE, DON'T DESCRIBE
When analysis requires computation (statistics, data processing, scoring, enrichment), write and run Python code via Bash. Don't describe what you would do — execute it and report actual results. Use ToolUniverse tools to retrieve data, then Python (pandas, scipy, statsmodels, matplotlib) to analyze it.
Search Strategy
Clinical Guidelines Search & Retrieval
Guideline Hierarchy
Not all guidelines carry equal weight. Evaluate sources in this order:
- NICE and WHO — Evidence-graded, regularly updated, rigorous systematic review process. NICE guidelines include explicit recommendation strength (e.g., "offer" vs "consider").
- Society guidelines (AHA, ADA, NCCN, SIGN) — Expert-consensus panels within a specialty. May lag behind the latest evidence by 1-3 years. Strong within their domain but narrower scope.
- Aggregator databases (TRIP, OpenAlex) — Index guidelines from multiple societies. Good for breadth and discovery, but you must verify the original source.
- Literature databases (PubMed, EuropePMC) — Return guideline-related publications, not curated guideline text. Useful as a fallback, not a primary source.
Always check publication date. A 2015 guideline may be superseded by a 2024 update. When presenting results, include the year prominently and note if newer guidance may exist.
COMPUTE, DON'T DESCRIBE
When analysis requires computation (statistics, data processing, scoring, enrichment), write and run Python code via Bash. Don't describe what you would do — execute it and report actual results. Use ToolUniverse tools to retrieve data, then Python (pandas, scipy, statsmodels, matplotlib) to analyze it.