What Is Evidence-Based Nursing Practice? According to the Journal of Nursing Administration, evidence-based practice (EBP) is a healthcare method that uses the most recent research available to improve patient health and safety while minimizing overall costs and variation in health outcomes. It is problem-solving in action, combining best practices from the most recent medical research with practical experience as well as the values and preferences of the people being treated. Although EBP was only recently widely adopted in current nursing practice, beginning in the 1990s, its origins are deep in nursing history. While the majority of the literature attributes EBP, then known as evidence-based medicine, to physician Archie Cochrane in the 1970s, some nurse researchers date it back to Florence Nightingale.