Evidence-Based Practice

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is the process of searching for, appraising, and integrating the most relevant, best research evidence to answer a clinical question or address a health care challenge. The best research evidence is weighed along with patient preferences and values, organisational data, and professional expertise. For this assessment, you will learn about each of the six steps of EBP in detail and acquire a working knowledge about EBP as a problem-solving approach used in many health care settings.
Of note, there are many published processes regarding the steps of EBP. Some processes have more steps and some have fewer. However, the fundamental concepts are the same.

For the purposes of organization, we will use the six step EBP process below in the courseroom:

1. Ask the clinical question.
2. Acquire the best evidence.
3. Apprise the evidence.
4. Implement the evidence.
5. Evaluating the outcomes.
6. Disseminate findings.

The purpose of this assessment is to identify your patient safety issue and further explain how the safety issue was identified, the impact on safety, and/or descriptions of the problem from clinical experts within your institution. Your goal is to identify internal resources or do a “needs assessment.” The internal resources will not require citation/references. You are welcome to draw from personal experiences and use creative liberty to make your case from an internal perspective.

Present a 5-minute PowerPoint presentation with voice over to introduce your patient safety issue, the supporting research, and possible intervention, using the following steps:

1. Consider patient safety issues that you have heard about in your practice, the medical field, the media, or your coursework. Select a patient safety issue to research throughout this course.
   o Explain the patient safety issue that needs improvement.
   o Describe the problem in detail using creative liberty or give specific examples of the issue in practice.
2. Locate and review two examples of internal or practice site sources of evidence that support the need for change to address the patient safety issue.
   o Describe how the sources were obtained, including a timeframe or number of patients involved.
   o The internal resources will NOT require citations and references.
3. Locate and review two sources of evidence that the safety issue exists outside of your institution.
   o We call these external resources. This information can come from peer-reviewed literature, clinical practice guidelines, consensus statements, local or national databases, national organizations, Joint Commission, and/or hospital compare (CMS). The external resources will require citations and references.
   o Explain how these literature resources support the need for change related to the patient safety issue.
   o Describe how each source is directly related to the patient safety issue.
4. Determine the organizational priority by describing why this patient care safety problem is of significant concern to stakeholders, patients, or community members. Give specific examples.
5. Describe your desired patient outcomes from a proposed intervention and the potential impact of the quality improvement project. Use at least one citation from literature to support the intervention.
6. Again, the patient safety issue and intervention or interventions identified for this assessment will also be used for all the assessments in this course, so take a look at those assessments now. Ensure the problem and interventions you select will work for the other four assessments.
7. Create 8-10 slides that reflect the issue you have selected, the evidence, and the possible interventions. You may use the following headings for your slides:
   o Title.
    Name, course information.
   o Presentation Outline.
   o Patient Safety Issue.
   o Internal Evidence of Patient Safety Issue.
   o External Evidence of Patient Safety Issue.
   o Organizational Priority for Intervention.
    Describe why problem is significant to stakeholders and give specific examples.
   o Propose a Quality Improvement Project.
    Describe interventions and desired patient outcomes and potential organizational impact.
    Include at least one citation from literature to support proposal.
   o References.
8. Record voice over for your slide presentation using PowerPoint features or Kaltura.
9. Submit PowerPoint slide deck with slide notes in PDF or Microsoft Word format and a video recording of your 5-minute presentation.