In principle, EBM (evidence-based medicine) and EBP (evidence-based practice) are two fundamental terminologies that have lately appeared in the clinical practice profession. Ideally, EBP refers to various clinical decision-making, which is primarily based on the individual patient’s needs, as well as individual clinical expertise combines with sound external research evidence. The objective of EBP is to offer some treatment standardization, to improve the quality of care, and patient outcomes. On the other hand, EBM refers to searching evidence and utilizing it to make certain clinical decisions (Peterson, et.al, 2014). An EMB’s cornerstone is the hierarchical system, which is used when classifying evidence, which is regarded as the levels of evidence.
On the same note, physicians, and other clinical professions are encouraged to search for the utmost level of evidence when they answer clinical questions since this will assist them in achieving appropriate patients’ outcomes. Notably, evidence-based nursing care has been known to be informed by various concepts such as patients’ values, clinical expertise, research findings, and its utilization, which can improve the outcomes of the patients. In clinical practice, utilization of research evidence is a probable standard and norm of practices for health care firms and nurses (Peterson, et.al, 2014).
However, many obstacles exist, which lead to the creation of a gap between new knowledge, as well as its implementation to improve patient care. Hence, the AACCN (American Association of Critical-Care Nurses) has intervened in an attempt of closing that gap through the development of numerous resources for nurses and clinicians. This includes developing a hierarchal rating structure and practice alerts for different levels of evidence (Peterson, et.al, 2014). When nurses use these levels of evidence, they can assess the findings, determine the research studies’ strength effectively, and analysis the evidence for probable best practice implementation.
According to the Oregon Health & Science University (2016), levels of evidence are allocated to various studies, which are founded on the procedural quality of their applicability, validity, and design to patient care. In essence, these decisions provide the strength or grade of their recommendations. Further, the different types of levels of evidence in nursing include Level I, which is the RCT (randomized controlled trial), and experimental study, as well as Level II, which is a quasi-experimental study. Subsequently, Level III is the non-experimental study, Level IV, which is the view of consensus panels, nationally renowned expert committees, and respected authorities that are founded on scientific evidence. This includes consensus panels and clinical practice guidelines. Level V are founded on non-research and experiential evidence namely case reports, literature reviews, as well as financial, program, or quality improvement evaluation (Oregon Health & Science University, 2016).
Most importantly, it is integral to evaluate the reliability of a particular source to analysis its authenticity. In this information technology era, numerous sources have been developed although they do not contain relevant information about a certain health aspect. This is a challenge that I encountered when I was performing my literature search for my project. Hence, it was difficult to filter through the primary and secondary sources to gather the appropriate information I was searching. Thus, my classmates should ensure that they utilize credible sources from reputable scholars and authors, peer-reviewed publications, and reports, as well as consensus panels and clinical practice guidelines (Peterson, et.al, 2014). Additionally, combining the information into one research paper was another challenge that I experienced because I had a lot of information and I never wanted to omit it since I thought that it was relevant. Nonetheless, I discovered that some of it was a repetition of another, and I had to filter that information carefully. In essence, my classmates must also know how to filter information gathered when conducting their research to avoid repeating similar information.
References
Oregon Health & Science University. (2016). Nursing: Levels of Evidence.
Peterson, M. H., Barnason, S., Donnelly, B., Hill, K., Miley, H., Riggs, L., & Whiteman, K. (2014). Choosing the best evidence to guide clinical practice: Application of AACN levels of evidence. American Association of Critical-Care Nurses. Vol 34, No. 2