Evidence-Based Practice: A Problem Solving Approach

According to Hamric, “evidence-based practice (EBP) is a problem-solving approach that incorporates best available scientific evidence, clinicians’ expertise, and patients’ preferences and values” (Hamric 2009) and is of high “importance to best practice and to the education of healthcare professionals” (Hamric 2009). EBP helps nurses to improve their clinical practice by evaluating what they do and how they do it, and what are the final outcomes on their patients. Research, in providing healthcare, is “generating new knowledge about a phenomenon or validating existing knowledge” (Hamric 2009). In research-based practice, there is no room for biases or prejudices. Each and every aspect of a study, or a trial is controlled. It can be controlled to the point where the person administering the trial is not even aware which patient is getting the true, lets say drug, and which one is getting a placebo. This insures absolutely no bias on the part of the examiner. Using research to guide practice, the practitioner is just looking at the results of the study, nothing else.
Also, healthcare providers can ask, “why does this work”, and research doesn’t require the answer to “why”, just that one thing works better than another. But, I think it is very important to know why one thing works for some people, but it doesn’t work at all for other people. In addition, EBP also considers the patient’s preferences and wishes to guide that patient’s care. EBP involves assessing the patient, asking questions, collecting and evaluating the evidence (which can include research findings), and then applying all of this to the treatment of the