Evidence Based Practice: It's what Florence Nightingale would have wanted!!

Evidenced-based practice was a new concept when I was in nursing school (2004-5). It seemed revolutionary, but I never really understood why. I always thought that nursing protocol was created from the best available research. I was naive and thought...isn't that how it should have always been. That may be so; but the truth is in nursing, we do things because that is what we were taught in nursing school. And for generations before, we handed down how to do nursing tasks without evidence of why we did them. Now because there are an increasing number of doctorally prepared nursing that are investigating nursing care from every angle, it is possible to have evidenced based practice.

What is an average nurse to do? First, learn how to use OVID!! OVID is a wonderful tool that most hospitals offer (through their library) for searching the medical/nursing research. This is the best way to find research articles. But I wonder if the average nurse could read what they found? There are lots of complicated statistics in research articles. Plus you have to understand if the population research is comparable to your patient population...and soooooo much more!

I didn't understand how to read and utilize research articles in my nursing practice until I took Research in my Master's program (THANK YOU DR. HABER!). So what is the average nurse to do? There are advanced practice nurses working throughout hospitals today that do study the literature and help make evidenced-based changes within their practice settings. If you are a nurse looking for a real evidenced-based answer about how to help your patients...search out an advanced practice nurse for guidance or visit your hospital/medical library for guidance.

Florence Nightingale was the first nurse researcher and nurse statistician! If you read her work, you will find that she was always asking why we did this and not that. She was always challenging the status quo. She would be so proud of what nurses are doing today...which will change the future of healthcare and the future of the profession!