Principles of Evidence-Based Practice and its Implementation
Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) is an essential concept in healthcare settings as it entails the use of quality and resent evidence while making the most accurate decision regarding patient care and needs. Incorporation of evidence-based preparation when giving patient care involves a range of abilities that will help the nurse in locating the appropriate resources after research. Furthermore, nurses must understand the information used in deducing, recording, and evaluating the repercussions of different interventions on a patient treatment plan. As a result, this essay will highlight the principles of evidence-based research and how they are implemented in advanced nursing practice.
Evidence-based Practice is founded on two principles. According to (Islas et al., 2018), the first principle states that recognition of scientific evidence can result at times insufficient to guide decision-making that can be of great importance. Nurses need to gather relevant evidence before settling on their final decision. Thus, the principle requires nurses to take into account evidence from multiple sources instead of basing their final decisions solely on their judgment. Therefore, nurse practitioners should rely on findings from empirical studies, facts, and figures gathered from the organization, the professional practitioners, and judgment from stakeholders involved in the study and are known trustable.
Consequently, the second principle suggests that within the available sources of evidence, hierarchies exist. According to (Vere & Gibson, 2020), the hierarchies available within the sources allows nurses to employ a top-down approach in deciding the best evidence to be used. Following the hierarchies make nurse practitioners first to consider the recent well-conducted systematic reviews. They then move to the next level of evidence when the previous level fails to yield a solution for their query. (Vere & Gibson, 2020) It is believed that the postulate of the hierarchies in EBP rank will show the variety of studies based on their strengths of research methods. Thus, different hierarchies exist for a variety of questions making it possible for nurses to make decisions based on the appropriate outcome that can provide simultaneously the best results.
While EBP is considered as the best practice that guarantees patients the best health outcome, most hospitals encounter many challenges that come along with the same. Therefore, its effective implementation is necessary. In advanced nursing practice understanding the data behind the evidence (Stavor et al., 2017) postulates that understanding the data will help in considering whether the available data is satisfactory in supporting the implementation of a new practice, or additional data is required for efficiency.
Furthermore, there is a need to consider the available resources at their disposal. Advanced nurse practitioners need to modify evidence-based Practice to fit the resources available to them since the availability of resources varies in different organizations (Thompson-Brenner et al., 2018). Besides, implementation of the philosophies of EBP, nurses must develop goals based on the outcomes of patients and not on the process itself. Implementation of the principles is dependent on the nurse’s preferences since their partialities play a vital role in the success of the implementation process.
In summary, Evidence-Based Practice is the application of updated proof in arriving at the best decision for better patient outcomes in terms of care delivery. EBP is based on the principle that states that scientific evidence is insufficient in the decision-making process and that hierarchies are present within the sources of evidence provided. Hence, the successful implementation is dependent on a better understanding of the presented data that was able to be collected, considering this way all the available resources, while the development of goals is based on the patient’s needs, and considering the preferences of the nurse practitioner.
References
Islas, O., Arribas, A., & Gutiérrez, F. (2018). The contribution of Alvin Toffler to the theoretical and conceptual imaginary of communication. https://doi.org/10.4185/rlcs-2018-1274en
Stavor, D. C., Zedreck-Gonzalez, J., & Hoffmann, R. L. (2017). Improving the Use of Evidence-Based Practice and Research Utilization Through the Identification of Barriers to Implementation in a Critical Access Hospital. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 47(1), 56–61. https://doi.org/10.1097/nna.0000000000000437 (Links to an external site.)
Thompson-Brenner, H., Brooks, G. E., Boswell, J. F., Espel-Huynh, H., Dore, R., Franklin, D. R., Gonçalves, A., Smith, M., Ortiz, S., Ice, S., Barlow, D. H., & Lowe, M. R. (2018). Evidence-based implementation practices applied to the intensive treatment of eating disorders: Summary of research and illustration of principles using a case example. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 25(1), e12221. https://doi.org/10.1111/cpsp.1222
Vere, J., & Gibson, B. (2020). Variation amongst hierarchies of evidence. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice. https://doi.org/10.1111/jep.13404
