One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned in this nursing theory course is that healthcare professionals can actively develop evidence-based practices wherever they work. According to Hoeck and Delmar (2017), nurses can begin this process by collecting or recording information about their work and using the data to navigate different situations in their work settings. This approach can help nurses save significant amounts of time spent trying to control tiny or mundane variables. Nurses can then complement universal theories and information in nursing with their in-house data to make the best resolutions and conclusions in any given situation within their practice. This strategy is vital in nursing practice because universal theories in nursing cannot be applied comprehensively across the board since nurses do not have control over every factor around them.
Developing evidence-based practices in nursing practice can require a lot of information gathering. In this nursing theory course, I have learned that this process is a constant cycle of gathering and analyzing evidence, synthesizing it into practice recommendations, disseminating the information to other healthcare practitioners, and evaluating its impact on nursing practice. According to Hoeck and Delmar (2017), since evidence-based practice is a resource-intensive activity that takes time and resources to create, implement and evaluate, nurses must find ways to make this process as efficient as possible. Additionally, the scholars state that it is essential that nurses identify and use an appropriate information system to gather the data needed to develop evidence-based practices. In this case, nurses need a tool to facilitate the rapid retrieval of recorded information and new data collection. In the end, I reckon that the purpose of collecting all this information to develop relevant evidence-based practices is to improve patients’ health and well-being, which makes the time spent in research worth every minute.
References
Hoeck, B., & Delmar, C. (2017). Theoretical development in the context of nursing-the hidden epistemology of nursing theory. Nursing Philosophy, 19(1).