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Evidence-Based Practice and Medical Education

Overview Tutorials

The following guides have been selected for their relevance to the principles taught in AMED 884:

Reasons for Using Evidence-Based Practice

  1. Health care knowledge grows so rapidly that you will be out of date by the time you ‘memorise the textbook’.
  2. Health care knowledge is now too vast to keep up to date with all the key publications, even in your field.
  3. Today’s information environment allows you to get information ‘just in time’ rather than ‘just in case’.
  4. EBP allows you to individualise the information for your patient’s situation.
  5. EBP teaches you to integrate the best available information with clinical expertise, patient values, and your health care environment.
  6. EBP helps you to challenge dogma and avoids uncritical acceptance of ‘usual practice’.
  7. EBP can be simple, quick, and will give you skills for lifelong learning and up to date practice.

 

Barriers to using Evidence-Based Practice for answering clinical questions

                             Barriers

  Solutions

Uncritical acceptance of 'usual practice'

Learn to question dogma

Failure to recognise and ask clinical questions

Practice recognising and asking clinical questions

Perceived lack of time

Understanding the resources available to find answers quickly and effectively

Lack of EBP skills

Learn these EBP skills here

Lack of access to information resources

The internet removes this barrier - some good quality resources are freely available

Applying the right answer to the wrong patient

Remember that the final step in EBP is to consider the individual patient, their values, and your practice setting

Lack of knowledge and support from colleagues for an EBP approach

Explain, teach, and model EBP approach in your practice

 

Source: Answering Clinical Questions. University of Western Australia