Evidence-Based Practice (EBP)
According to the Institute of Medicine’s stated goal, by 2020, 90% of nursing practice has to be evidence-based. However, it is currently approximated at 15% in the U.S. EBP entails making decisions regarding patient care, which are dependent on high-quality evidence generated by well-organized clinical research in combination with clinicians’ experience and expertise as well as patients’ values and preferences. Patients’ evidence-based care has the capacity of improving quality of care, reducing medical complications, and decreasing healthcare costs by at least 30% (Cullen & Hanrahan, 2018).
However, several barriers could hinder nursing practice from realizing the above goal. One of the main hindrances is resistance or lack of support for implementing EBP from managers and nurse leaders. In theory, nursing leaders and managers demonstrate their interest in implementing EBP and that they would like to see their clinicians delivering evidence-based care. Yet, they fail to walk the talk (Ohio State University, 2014). If these leaders fail to act as role models in providing evidence-based solutions, fail to provide tools, resources, and education for the clinicians to obtain skills and knowledge needed for consistently implementing this, it neither can be implemented nor sustained.
The other significant barrier to implementation of EBP is the lack of required education, knowledge, skills, information, and other competencies. Clinicians with more education, better skills, and experience are more confident in implementing EBP. It should be noted a nurse’s average age is 47, meaning that they obtained education when EBP was not wholly integrated within educational programs (Tacia, Biskupski, & Lehto, 2015). Therefore, many nurses practice how they were oriented or apply conventional healthcare practice. When fresh graduates with EBP knowledge join such nurses, within real-world setups, they face the prevalence of the culture ‘this is how we do it.’
These said barriers could, therefore, be addresses in several ways. The first one is by increasing educational and training programs that integrate EBP such that by the nurses enter the practice; they are already oriented into implementing EBP in patient care. Similarly, it is crucial to have mentors who can guide nurses and motivate them into implementing EBP. The other way is changing the organizational culture that is resistant to changes, for example, by building infrastructure that sustains and supports EBP through leadership (Tacia, Biskupski, & Lehto, 2015). Also, these barriers can be avoided by providing more time to its implementation as well as increasing the collaboration of team members, thereby creating an enabling environment for the promotion of EBP.