Evidence Based Practice (EBP) is an approach whereby decisions on treatment of patients within a clinical setting are based on three specific principles. These principles are that of using the best available research evidence on the treatment, using the available clinical expertise of the staff and taking into consideration the clients preferences and values. When properly implemented EBP has been shown to reduce overall costs and significantly improve patient safety and the quality of care the patient receives.
However, it can sometimes be difficult to implement these types of practices (Hughes, 2008). Several barriers associated with implementation of EBP are lack of understanding of statistics, lack of understanding of the terms used in research journals and lack of time. In order for EBP to be successful it is important that staff are given the resources and training in order to help reduce the occurrence of these barriers. (Majid et al., 2011)
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I currently work in a health care setting. Therefore, I have often observed that sometimes the types of treatments given are based on the nurse and their previous experience. For this reason, there is sometimes inconsistency in the treatment received. Some nurses may be unwilling to adapt newer ways of thinking simply because they believe that they old methods are working so why should they change them (Stokke, Olsen, Espehaug, & Nortvedt, 2014)#_ENREF_3″ t “Stokke, 2014 #905. It is for this reason that I believe integration of a pilot test to study EBP is essential. The only way to convince other staff of the benefits of these type of methods is to show it working within the workplace.
If staff can observe the positive differences that EBP can make, and can see that it is not extremely difficult to adopt these type of methods, they may be more likely to consider implementation of EBP in their daily workflow.
- Hughes, R. (2008). Patient safety and quality: An evidence-based handbook for nurses (Vol. 3): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Rockville, MD.
- Majid, S., Foo, S., Luyt, B., Zhang, X., Theng, Y.-L., Chang, Y.-K., & Mokhtar, I. A. (2011). Adopting evidence-based practice in clinical decision making: nurses’ perceptions, knowledge, and barriers. Journal of the Medical Library Association: JMLA, 99(3), 229.
- Stokke, K., Olsen, N. R., Espehaug, B., & Nortvedt, M. W. (2014). Evidence based practice beliefs and implementation among nurses: A cross-sectional study. BMC nursing, 13(1), 8.
