Importance of Using Evidence-Based Practice
Importance of Using Evidence-Based Practice
In a model planet, “nurses could keep up to date by reading all of the published literature in their relevant areas” (Bonell, 2001, p. 21). However, it is difficult for nurses and other healthcare practitioners to read all the available publications. Multiple journals are published annually making it hard for nurses to sift through all of them due to the nature of their work. Evidence-based practice enables nurses to acquaint themselves with pertinent novel information without having to read a lot of publications. Evidence-based practice entails making decisions based on the available facts. Thus, it facilitates decision-making processes among the nurses. Bonell (2001) maintains that the evidence-based practice enables nurses to defend their decisions. Besides, it offers them an opportunity to evaluate different nursing alternatives and select the most appropriate. Nurses who use evidence-based practices exude confidence in their work since they use facts rather than routines to backup their health services. In other words, the evidence-based practice enables nurses to assume full responsibility for their actions.
Application of evidence-based practice helps a healthcare institution to standout in the industry. Besides, it helps an organization to defend its services and avoid cases of litigations. According to LoBiondo-Wood and Haber (2006), evidence-based practice is easy to monitor and evaluate. Thus, it enables nurses to scrutinize their practices and implement necessary changes. Indeed, EBP helps healthcare workers to reduce operation costs and validate the need for extra funding. It helps healthcare worker who operate within tight budgets to meet their targets or persuade the government to offer additional fund. Evidence-based practice reduces cases of misuse of healthcare resources. Nurses ensure that they use the most effective intervention, therefore avoiding cases of finite resources going to waste. Besides, EBP alleviates human suffering and mitigate cases of disability by ensuring that nurses offer quality healthcare.
The Need for Research Methods
Nurses need to understand research methods to implement evidence-based practice. Melnyk and Fineout-Overholt (2011) maintain, “An efficacious intervention is unlikely to work in a new context if the providers or recipients consider its goals and outcomes to be unimportant or its procedures inappropriate” (p. 41). Research methods play a significant role in helping nurses to bridge the gap between research and practice. According to Melnyk and Fineout-Overholt (2011), a majority of the nursing interventions are not available in medical record databases. Most research studies in the nursing field are predominately qualitative and descriptive. Therefore, nurses ought to have skills in research methods to critique the available studies and come up with appropriate EBP instructions. Nurses apply research skills to develop EBP guidelines. Also, they use research methods to standardize facts collected from diverse medical fields and come up with appropriate evidence-based practice. Melnyk and Fineout-Overholt (2011) allege that research methods assist physicians to draw clinical suggestions from scientific studies.
For decades, nurses have tried to use nursing research to enhance health services for both aggregate groups and individuals. According to Stetler et al. (2007), “… emphasis in the 1980s on research utilization has been expanded with the increasing emphasis on evidence-based practice” (p. 46). According to LoBiondo-Wood and Haber (2006), evidence-based practice covers numerous forms of facts like study reviews, research findings, and evidence-based theory. Moreover, it covers the consideration of those facts in determining patient values and penchants and clinical expertise. Previously, nurses did not appreciate the role of research methods in establishing nursing interventions and making critical decisions. Nowadays, nurses with skills in research methods can discern and surmount barriers to application of evidence-based practice. In other words, understanding research methods helps to bridge the gap that exists between acquisition of skills in EBP and its use in the medical field. Nurses use translation science to decode research into practical. Indeed, understanding research methods helps nurses to slot in finest evidence in health services
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