Clinical practice guidelines and organizational adaptation: a framework for analyzing economic effects.

Objectives: The overall objective of this article was to review the theoretical and conceptual dimensions of how the implementation of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) is likely to affect treatment costs.

Methods: An important limitation of the extant literature on the cost effects of CPGs is that the main focus has been on clinical adaptation. We submit that the process innovation aspects of CPGs require changes in both clinical and organizational dimensions.