“With AI increasingly shaping clinical studies, diagnostics, and data analysis, updated guidelines are necessary to help researchers report their methods and findings with clarity and transparency,” emphasized Department of Science and Technology (DOST) Secretary Renato Solidum, Jr.

Recognizing this call for clearer reporting standards, in her presentation during the PAMJE Educational Forum on 18 March 2028 in Muntinlupa City, Dr. Venus Oliva Cloma-Rosales, Assistant Vice-President for Internal Affairs of the Philippine Association of Medical Journal Editors (PAMJE), reported that the EQUATOR Network, known for developing and promoting standardized reporting guidelines, has introduced AI-specific extensions to its guidance

The EQUATOR Network, established in 2006, provides researchers, journals, and institutions with access to more than 700 reporting guidelines, including widely adopted frameworks such as CONSORT for randomized trials, PRISMA for systematic reviews or meta-analyses, and STROBE for observational studies.

Dr. Cloma-Rosales explained that these traditional reporting frameworks were not designed for systems that evolve, retrain, and interact with humans – such as AI. This gap has led to challenges for researchers and editors, including AI models that are difficult to interpret, studies that are hard to replicate, risks of errors, data leakage and bias, and overstated claims of clinical performance.

Among the new frameworks she presented were the CONSORT-AI Extension and SPIRIT-AI Extension, which set standards for clinical trial protocols and reports involving AI interventions. The TRIPOD-LLM guideline provides updated guidance for studies using large language models, while STARD-AI addresses diagnostic accuracy studies. These new guidelines emphasize core principles including data provenance, model development and validation, human-AI interaction, and transparency and explainability.

She also highlighted practical applications of the guidance. For journal editors, the recommendation is to require checklists at submission, use them to desk-screen for mismatches, and guide reviewers to apply them selectively. Editors are cautioned against treating checklists as mere “box-ticking” exercises, since they should support professional judgment rather than replace it. For researchers, the advice is to select the appropriate guideline before writing, align the protocol, analysis, and reporting with it, and use the guideline as a framework for drafting manuscripts. The best-reported papers, Dr. Cloma-Rosales noted, are those that are planned for reporting from the protocol stage.

In closing, Dr. Cloma-Rosales remarked, “Good reporting doesn’t slow science, it makes science usable. Reporting is not bureaucracy. It is respect: for readers, reviewers, patients, and the scientific record.”

Established in 2011 with the DOST – Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (DOST-PCHRD) as its partner, PAMJE is a non-governmental, non-profit organization that works to strengthen the quality of medical and health journal publishing in the country.

The PAMJE Educational Forum is supported annually by the DOST-PCHRD to provide researchers, editors, and institutions with the latest information about journal writing, publishing, and editing.