Clinical Practice Guidelines, Statements & Reports

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Official ATS Documents include clinical practice guidelines, clinical statements, policy statements, research statements, technical standards, and workshop reports, many of which are developed collaboratively with other professional societies.

  • Clinical practice guidelines make recommendations for patient care. The recommendations are based upon a systematic review and then formulated and graded using the GRADE approach.
  • Clinical statements make recommendations for patient care, which are based upon a pragmatic evidence synthesis.
  • Policy and research statements present the views of the ATS on issues related to public policy or research policy, respectively.
  • Technical statements describe how to perform a test or procedure and describe the underlying evidence.
  • Workshop reports describe conferences and workshops sponsored by the ATS.

Most Official ATS Documents are housed on the ATS Journals website, including abstracts, references, supplemental materials and more. For inquiries pertaining to official ATS documents, please contact documents@thoracic.org. A small number of Official ATS Documents that were co-sponsored by other professional societies appear in those societies’ journals.

Guideline Implementation Tools

American Thoracic Society (ATS) Official Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) make recommendations for patient care that are informed by systematic reviews and then formulated and graded using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) approach. The guidelines are compliant with the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) Standards for Trustworthy Guidelines.

All CPGs are developed in collaboration with ATS committees or assemblies; many are also developed with other professional medical societies. CPGs led by the ATS are published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (AJRCCM). An online supplement accompanies most CPGs. In addition, a clinical summary targeting clinicians is published in the Annals of ATS. CPGs co-sponsored by other professional medical societies may be published in those societies’ journals.

ATS CPGs are regularly disseminated via ATS Ed+, sessions at the International Conference, webinars, social media, news releases, podcasts and member newsletters.

For any questions, please contact Joseph Ruminjo, MD at jruminjo@thoracic.org.

The following CPGs have dissemination and implementation webpages. This is not a comprehensive list of all recent CPGs.

Asthma

COPD

Interstitial Lung Disease

Oxygen Therapy

Pediatrics

Pleural Disease

Pulmonary Infections

Pulmonary Rehabilitation

Pulmonary Function Testing

Sleep

Tobacco