Compared to other professions, nursing practitioners spend a significant portion of their time caring for patients through administration of treatment, catering for patients’ needs and making major decisions concerning the care process. Most nursing practitioners are also involved in the formulation and design of policies to enhance the wellbeing of patients, carrying out research and enlightening patients and their communities. To stay relevant, nursing practice must evolve into a profession that is more focused on continuous research and knowledge, hence the significance of evidence based practice (Youngblut and Brooten 467).
Evidence based nursing refers to the practical use of best research in the clinical care of patients. Best evidence entails best nursing research, knowledge, management, policy, and practice. Evidence based nursing advocates for utilization of the best, up-to-date available evidence to address patient needs. Traditionally, nursing practice was based on the opinions and experiences of the practitioners, and less often incorporated input from non-practitioners. The emergence of evidence based nursing practices shifted treatment approaches to become evidence oriented, resulting into establishment of treatment standards that are more rational and consistent (Youngblut and Brooten 470).
Evidence based practice focuses more on the needs of the patient, thus it encompasses processes of lifelong learning through regular assessment of issues that have direct practical implications to the patients, then critically and efficiently evaluating the existing best evidence for the particular issue in order to implement it. The process of evidence based practice, therefore, involves the identification of a practice issue, formulation of the possible hypotheses to the question, followed by search for best evidence from credible resources.
The evidence obtained is then critically evaluated and the clinical relevance assessed in order to generate recommendations. The approved evidence is then utilized in clinical practice and evaluated to determine its effectiveness and outcomes. Evidence based practice is, thus, a life-long, self-directed, issue-based learning that involves assessment of the relationship between clinical reasoning and research evidence.
Importance of Evidence Based Nursing
Evidence based nursing is particularly important because it offers practical clinical standards of practice that have been shown to contribute to positive patient outcomes. Evidence based practice is established on practical guidelines, known as best practice, that have been well acknowledged by practitioners and health care organizations for they have been proved to be integral in the achievement of the health sector’s stringent practice standards.
In nursing, evidence based practice is well accepted for its role in enhancing individualization of nursing care to the needs of the patients, for its effectiveness, and the opportunity it offers to nurses to utilize the value of clinical judgment. Evidence based nursing ensures that patients receive care that is relevant to their problem, promotes sound decision making process that is more explicit, reduces risks to the patient, thus, ensuring maximization of benefits, and provides the practitioners with the knowledge that empowers them to evaluate healthcare research and practice. This makes nurses to keep pace with advances in nursing practice (Youngblut and Brooten 472).