Evidence in practice

A clinical scenario is used to illustrate how the principles outlined in the previous articles in the series could be applied to help improve patient care. A practical demonstration of the art of formulating answerable clinical questions, finding evidence, critically appraising evidence, and putting evidence into practice is provided. The importance of integrating evidence with patient’s preferences, and taking account of issues such as availability of interventions, costs, and so on is discussed. Finally, some of the issues involved in the development of evidence based policies within clinical teams are outlined.