One of the most effective ways to ensure high quality of care and procedure standardization in health care is the implementation of evidence-based practice (EBP). EBP is based on the most recent and relevant scientific findings and may be opposed to common knowledge within the healthcare system. This essay will discuss the discrepancy between research findings and their use in the workplace and two common obstacles to EBP introduction.
Obstacles at Individual Level
Adequate implementation requires making meaningful changes at all levels. Admittedly, health providers such as nurses play a significant role in reforming the healthcare system. Khammarnia, Haj Mohammadi, Amani, Rezaeian, and Setoodehzadeh (2015) found that nurses had difficulties with introducing advised practices due to the lack of time to read literature and enhance their computer illiteracy. Moreover, there might be a reluctance to make amendments to the usual workflow at their medical facility.
Obstacles at Organizational Level
It is safe to assume that personal struggles with EBP could be overcome if managers provided ongoing support for nurses. Gifford et al. (2018) reason that ideally, the managing board and supervisors of a medical facility could implement task-oriented and relation-oriented encouraging behaviors. In the first case, they would operationalize the vision and mission of their facility by explaining new procedures whereas in the second case, they would counsel and guide employees. It is easy to see how such an approach could be too time-consuming for many managers and thus, rejected, which constitutes the second obstacle to EBP implementation.
Conclusion
Proper evidence-based practice implementation is associated with better patient outcomes, health providers’ job satisfaction, and decreased financial burden on patients, medical facilities, and insurance companies. Despite the extensive body of evidence about the benefits of EBP, there is a lot of space for improvement in terms of implementation. On the individual level, nurses might be lacking the knowledge, awareness, and personal resources to embrace new policies. On the organizational level, some systems are characterized by a high degree of rigidity and lack of support.
References
Gifford, W. A., Squires, J. E., Angus, D. E., Ashley, L. A., Brosseau, L., Craik, J. M., … & Graham, I. D. (2018). Managerial leadership for research use in nursing and allied health care professions: A systematic review. Implementation Science: IS, 13(1), 127.
Khammarnia, M., Haj Mohammadi, M., Amani, Z., Rezaeian, S., & Setoodehzadeh, F. (2015). Barriers to implementation of evidence based practice in Zahedan teaching hospitals, Iran, 2014. Nursing Research and Practice, 2015, 357140.