A Collaborative Strategy to Bring Evidence into Practice

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is a problem-solving approach to the delivery of health care that integrates the best evidence from well-designed studies and theories with a clinician's expertise and the patient's preferences and values in making the best clinical decisions. EBP represents the application of research-based knowledge and practice-based expertise in the real world setting of nursing practice. In today's academic environment, many courses require students to find evidence and to develop evidence-based protocols. However, these activities often occur in the silo of the academic setting. In the academic setting, assignments often require students to assemble a body of evidence and to make clinical decisions without the expertise of practicing nurses or the values of the patient as a context for those decisions. This approach further intensifies the theory?practice gap and keeps learning outside the realities of today's complex work environment. On the other hand, expert clinicians at the bedside often cite a lack of knowledge about how to find and critique studies, and a lack of knowledge about the research process as well as a lack of time to read and analyze research as barriers to bringing evidence into the practice setting. The teaching strategy presented in this column combines the clinical expertise of nurses on a dedicated education unit (DEU) with nursing students? evolving skill in reading, critiquing, and analyzing research-based literature. An element of the collaboration between the school of nursing and the clinical partner is to enhance patient care and outcomes while educating the next generation of nurses and fostering the professional growth of the nurses on the DEU. This teaching strategy presents a ?win-win? situation in which students become engaged with clinical nurses in a unit-based project at the site of their clinical education course. In addition, the practicing nurses are involved in the evaluation and translation of research-based evidence to their practice. References