Evidence-based practice in healthcare is important because it helps to provide patients with the most efficient treatment possible and get the best experience. It provides healthcare workers with a reliable basis to make decisions and decreases costs for businesses and customers. EBP helps keep practice modern and advanced, addressing scientific research and therefore making doctors and nurses more competent in their work. This results in improved outcomes in the treatment, and the decisions made in practice are made using the most approved evidence (Greenhalgh, 2017). It is important that health professionals question themselves before taking action about the appropriateness of their decisions and if they are supported by any evidence not only from their own practice but also scientific research.
There are four levels of evidence-based practice varying in the distance from the evidence to the action of a practitioner. On the first level, the existing literature is followed and considered when making own interpretation of the evidence. Every next level goes further in research, as on the second level, hypotheses and measurements are made, the results are made public on the third level, and the fourth level is defined by the publication of the research in peer-reviewed journals (Greenhalgh, 2017). Finding out about this structure of EBP is beneficial as understanding it helps to be aware of the reliability of different evidence. It is least reliable on the first level, as the interpretation in certain cases is slightly supported by similar evidence in existing literature, and it is most reliable on the fourth level after all the processes of validation of a method. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how valid the evidence is used in practice to be confident of the decisions made.
Reference
Greenhalgh, T. (2017). How to implement evidence-based healthcare. John Wiley & Sons.