EBP can help you find the best evidence quickly

Problem: Patient care questions remain unanswered.

Studies have shown that the frequency of questions raised by clinicians ranges from .16 to 1.85 per patient seen. Due to lack of time, lack of information resources, and weak search skills, clinicians are only seeking answers to 50% of those questions.[1]

EBP Solution: Evidence-based practice tools and methods make it faster and easier to find the best evidence, especially at the point of care where it matters most. This means that more questions can be answered, health care can become more evidence-based, and outcomes potentially improved.

Problem: Healthcare literature, with clinically applicable findings, is published at a rate that is impossible for individual clinicians to keep up with.

A 2010 study indicated that there were over seventy-five clinical trials and eleven systematic reviews published every day in medicine.[2]

At ten minutes an article, it would take over fourteen hours every day to read them all.

EBP Solution: Systematic reviews, evidence-based practice summaries, clinical practice guidelines, and peer-reviewed article lists are all examples of EBP tools that help to tame this flood of information by summarizing the best information.

Critical appraisal methods make it easier to look at an article and be able to quickly determine its strengths and weaknesses and its use for patient care. A core element of EBP is the focus on patient-oriented outcomes such as death, disability, and discomfort rather than disease-oriented outcomes such as lab results.

EBP tools and methods can help you to easily separate the best, clinically relevant and patient-oriented evidence from the rest.

Problem: It can take more than a decade for clinical research to be fully integrated into everyday practice.[3]

Even once evidence is widespread, providers still make decisions based on habit rather than evidence.

EBP Solution: By making good evidence easier to find and appraise, EBP can reduce this delay and provide better support for changing care.

  1. Del Fiol, G, Workman TE, Gorman PN. Clinical Questions Raised by Clinicians at the Point of Care: A Systematic Review. JAMA Internal Medicine 2014;174(5):710-718. ↵
  2. Bastian H, Glasziou P, Chalmers I. Seventy-five trials and eleven systematic reviews a day: how will we ever keep up? PLoS Med 2010; 7: e1000326." ↵
  3. Kristensen C, Numann C, Konradsen H. Implementing research results in clinical practice- the experiences of healthcare professionals. BMC Health Services Research 2016;16:48. ↵

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