Optimizing the language and format of guidelines to improve guideline uptake.

©2016 8872147 Canada Inc. or its licensors CMAJ 1 Organizations around the world produce clinical practice guidelines at an astonishing pace, with great effort and at substantial cost.1 Unfortunately, despite broad dissemination efforts, large gaps remain between guideline recommendations and real-world practice across health systems, practitioner and patient types, and diseases.2 Conventional approaches to guideline implementation use the guideline as a starting point and manipulate factors external to the guideline (e.g., provider knowledge and practice workflow) to optimize its uptake.1 However, it is becoming increasingly clear that certain features of the guideline itself may also influence its uptake. We explore how the language and format used in a guideline may affect how likely it is to be followed in real-world practice. We offer practical tips to optimize these features in an effort to increase a guideline’s uptake.