Evidence Based Practice

1210 Words5 Pages
According to Dr. David Sackett, a Canadian physician, evidence-based practice is the process that is “conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients” (Legg, 2008, p.469). In other words it is combining the best available evidence, along with the patient’s best interest, in order to make a nursing expertise decision about the best possible practice to use on the patient. Why is evidence-based practice becoming so important in today’s society and is it being effective? In the past decade evidence-based practice has become a “standard for quality of care” (Xiaoshi, 2008, p.6-12). The major reason for EBP becoming so widely used is because there is a big deficiency in research-based information to back up clinical decision making (Legg, 2008, p.469). Increasing healthcare cost, treatments, and care due to population aging can be another reason for the boom in EBP (Xiaoshi, 2008, p.6-12). If procedures are done just because that’s the way they have always been done and not because of the research that backs it up, a big problem can occur. Ineffective care is very costly for both patients and health departments, due to patients having to stay in the hospital longer, more procedures being done, and more tests being performed. Health departments have been encouraging the development of EBP so the most effective health care is being used and so the best benefits come out of it (Xiaoshi, 2008, p.6-12). This encouraging is showing to be effective because there are many cases of using evidence-based practice in the medical field. Health care providers are being assisted in taking on evidence-based practice while having the guidelines for clinical practice. An example of challenging the traditional work routine is when a clinical question about the administering of intramuscular injections
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