ESSAY: What is Evidence Based Practice?

Concisely define evidenced based practice, the evolution of EBP and how barriers to EBP can be overcome. Briefly give an example of a compelling clinical question that piques your interest.

ANSWER

What is Evidence-based Practice?

            Evidence-based practice (EBP) refers to any practice relying on scientific evidence for guidance and making decisions. Practices, which are not based on evidence, rely on intuition, tradition, or other unproven methods (Lehane et al., 2019). According to Melnyk et al. (2010), the evidence-based practice involves a conscientious use of the current evidence to make decisions concerning patient care. Evidence-based practice evolved in the 1800s from Florence Nightingale, and it resulted in the medical practice of physicians in the late 1970s to the late 1990s’ nursing profession (Melnyk et al., 2010). While not an exactly a healthcare’s new concept, EBP transformed health care throughout the mid-20^th century (Lehane et al., 2019), and the call for EBP following quality deficits in healthcare have resulted in the healthcare providers thinking and researching for the most proven and effective ways to treat patients.             Various strategies are applicable to overcome barriers to the implementation of EBP in healthcare and nursing. For the evolvement and overcoming barriers to EBP, systems and individuals must be committed to the advancement and allocation of resources primarily to this course/purpose (Lehane et al., 2019). A culture where EBP is the ‘norm’ must be advanced as part of the solution, and unity between the APNs and researchers should be encouraged to overcome any emerging barriers to EBP (Melnyk et al., 2010). The primary reason for this is that there is a lot of areas whereby evidence is non-existence, which means the current nursing practices will not be supported save for this unity between…