Strategies For Success - Bringing Evidence Based Practice to the Bedside
Objective: Implementation of strategies to support evidence based practice within various professional nursing practice arenas, particularly for the bedside staff nurse.
Design: The nursing practice, research and performance improvement committees, collaboratively serving as leadership for professional practice standards, adopted and utilize a definition for evidence based practice (EBP) for nursing. A logical “formula” evolved from this newly adopted definition to assist nursing staff in understanding the essential components of EBP:
EBP = Research Evidence + Clinical Expertise + Patient Preference.
With each practice situation staff are encouraged to consider each component of the formula. The professional practice committees use the formula for EBP when approaching clinical issues reinforcing this expectation and serving as a role model to the clinical areas.
Population: The setting is a 128-bed acute care facility in rural west central Ohio, USA.
Concepts or variables studied: Patient falls rates and fall related severity of injury was the initial clinical problem addressed using the EBP formula.
Methodology: A team of nurses, including a CNS facilitator, perused current research about patient falls, attended seminars and integrated findings into current standards of practice. Staff were then educated on research, assessment, and fall prevention strategies through a “Fall Fair”. Using the EBP “formula” staff consider current research, expert opinion as well as patient preference for fall prevention strategies.
Findings: A decline in fall rate and decline in severity of fall related injury.
Conclusions: Use of the “formula” of EBP improved patient outcomes related to patient safety and fall prevention. “Best practice” depends not only on research, but also consideration of a given clinical situation and patient preference.
Implication: The formula used for EBP has proven successful in serving as a framework for other clinical issues as well.
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Sigma Theta Tau International
9 July 2003