Background: At present, clinical pathway (CPs) has become one of the most important healthcare reform measures in many countries. The toolkits for developing CPs are very important to implement the CPs.
Objectives: In the current study, the authors aim to focus on the construction of a clinical pathway development working group.
Methods: A comprehensive literature search in the Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMBASE, Chinese Biomedical Database (CBM), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and the Wanfang Database was conducted from inception to February 2017. The number and proportion of reported items for each items were also calculated.
Results: A total of 14 toolkits for developing CPs were included. Among the toolkits, all of them described the scope of the team and doctors and nurses accounted for the majority of people; 42.9% (6/14) described the functional areas of each group; all of them described the development of a clinical pathway development team, 50% (7/14) had one group and only 7.14% (1/14) had 5 groups.
Conclusions: Although numerous toolkits for developing CPs were produced, more formal clinical pathways toolkits are needed.