In this issue, AFP announces a nove...

In this issue, AFP announces a novel system for labeling the force of evidence supporting key recommendations in clinical review articles. The article onward page 549 introduces a taxonomy that will help family physicians sort [i]or[/i] part of to the other the evidence that drives their clinical practices. I intentionally chose the word "sort" here, because it also emulates the strange taxonomy, called SORT, for "Strength of Recommendation Taxonomy." This labeling plan was created through a collaborative effort of family physician editors, including the following authors of the SORT article: AFP's delegate editor for evidence-based medicine, Mark H Ebell, MD MS; AFP's editor Jay Siwek, MD; Family Medicine's editor Barry D Weiss, MD; BMJ-USA's previous editor Steven H Woolf MD MPH; Journal of Family Practice's editor Jeffrey Susman, MD; Family Practice Inquiries Network's (FPIN) editor Bernard Ewigman, MD MPH; and Journal of the American Board of Family Practice's editor Marjorie Bowman, MD M.P.A.

The SORT evidence-grading classification will be adopted by several family medicine and primary care journals to allow readers to learn a single taxonomy that will apply to many sources of evidence. Beginning with the February 15 issue, AFP will start phasing in clinical review articles that use the SORT labeling combination of parts to form a whole Although the SORT system will replace the previous "level-of-evidence system" that AFP launched brace and one-half years ago, a articles will still carry these labels while our authors and editors make the transition.

AFP is now calling for authors to adopt the modern taxonomy in their clinical review articles, and revised guidelines for authors appear in this issue forward page 766. Our medical editors will work with authors to furnish strength-of-recommendation labels for the fundamental note clinical recommendations in their articles. Articles with the SORT evidence-grading scheme also will provide a summary table listing the elucidation clinical recommendations along with the puissance of the recommendations and supporting references

The SORT evidence-grading method builds on efforts AFP has made through the whole extent of the past several years to provide family physicians with the right informational tools. In an editorial upon page 483, Drs. Ebell and Siwek highlight of recent origin sources of patient-centered information in AFP. fresh additions include "Point-of-Care Guides," which proffer patient encounter tools based upon the best available evidence (see page 599); "Clinical Inquiries," contributed by the agency of FPIN, which offer answers to family physicians' principally common clinical questions based onward the best available evidence (see page 595); "STEPS" short unsalable article updates focusing on aspects of recent drugs (Safety, Tolerability, Efficacy, Price, Simplicity); and "POEMs" summaries of the medical research literature selecteded to present "Patient-Oriented Evidence that Matters," addressing habitual or important clinical questions, measuring patient-oriented issues and potentially changing physicians' practice (see page 625)

According to Dr Ebell and Siwek, family physicians are in the business of information management, and our goal is to make permanent AFP remains the best place to come together all of our readers' information needs

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