Get Familiar with Evidence Based Practice

If you are in nursing school, you have no doubt learned all about the importance of Evidence Based Practice (EBP). In school, many of us have had to make countless posters and presentations on the current best evidence for why we do what we do for our patients. This involves reading numerous nursing journal articles and analyzing the evidence. If you think the countless hours spent on these projects ends in nursing school – you’re wrong. EBP will follow you into your nursing career as it becomes the priority for hospitals and healthcare practices around the country.

So what’s the big deal? It had been found that nurses provided care to patients based on tradition and routine rather than because it had the best outcomes. With doing research studies on nursing practice and providing best evidence guidelines, nurses now have a framework to practice that is best for the patient.

How does this benefit you? As a patient it benefits you by knowing that you are receiving the best care according to the most recent evidence based research. As a nursing student and nurse you can feel satisfaction that you are doing what you are doing for a purpose. It is also reassuring to be able to tell your patient exactly why they have to wear their uncomfortable sequential compression devices (SCDs), for example.

How can you be involved? In nursing school you will begin to analyze your nursing care of your patient. You will begin to see practices that are done that you may feel could be improved or changed altogether. As a nurse on your unit you will be able to take those ideas and either start your own research project to improve them, or create a poster for your unit on what is currently the best practice for a particular nursing care. You may also be interested in starting a journal club where you and your colleagues get together and analyze a recent evidence based article in your field.

What are your thoughts on this? Have you recently made evidence based project for school? How did this improve your nursing knowledge of the topic?