Evidence-based practice is about using the best data
Evidence-based practice is about using the best data, proof, and facts, along with physician experience, and preferences of our patients to make informed decisions about their care. “The main goal is to help clinicians evaluate published research results. Organizing and carrying out a meta-analysis is hard work, but the findings can be significant. Meta-analysis is a powerful tool to cumulate and summarize the knowledge in a research field, and to identify the overall measure of a treatment’s effect by combining several conclusions (Greco, Zangrillo, Biondi-Zoccai, ; Landoni, 2013).” In healthcare practice, most questions are related to the treatments effectiveness; does this intervention work better than this other intervention? Can this treatment cause harm to our patients, or will it reduce symptoms of the disease process? It is important to have answers to these samples of questions, and recommendations because as the nurse you will want to deliver the highest quality care, and for us to do so, we need to use the most effective interventions to have the best patient outcomes.
As healthcare workers who use and rely on practices that are evidence-based, we should not entrust using only one study to change our practice, because that would be unreliable. The goal is to implement the best evidence. We need multiple studies on the same topic, using the same or comparable methods, on similar populations, all intending to have the same outcomes, and to then give us the assurance to change our practice and protocols.
