Evidence Based Practice Essay

Organizations that cultivate a spirit of inquiry encourage their employees to question and challenge patient care and organizational practices in order to improve practices (Melnyk & Fineout-Overholt, 2015). Evidence-based practice (EBP) is a tool that cultivates a spirit of inquiry (Melnyk & Fineout-Overholt, 2015). Melnyk and Fineout-Overhold (2015) outline the six (6) steps of EBP. The first is to create a clinical question. The second step is to gather the best evidence possible using systemic reviews or meta-analyses resources. Decisions should be based on “the strongest level of evidence” (Melnyk & Fineout-Overholt, 2015, p. 11). The third step calls for ensuring the evidence is valid, reliable and applicable. Fourthly, the evidence is integrated with clinical expertise and patient values to formulate a plan. The fifth step

Many professionals regard EBP as the basis for nursing practices (Irwin, Bergman, & Richards, 2013). My clinical question is -In hospitals, how well do nurses integrate EBP into clinical practice? Studies have proved there are gaps when integrating EBP into the clinical settings (as cited in Irwin et al., 2013). For example, the Norwegian Radium Hospital leaders questioned the gap between newly graduated nurses and senior staff nurses when it came to EBP practice (Bruheim, Woods, Smeland, & Nortvedt, 2013). The newly graduated nurses were solid in research skills as those used in EBP; however, the senior staff nurses depended more on physician directed care (Bruheim et al., 2013). In order to close this gap, the leaders implemented a strategy to transition all of the nurses to EBP practices; and thus, improved patient outcomes and oncology practices (Bruheim et al., 2013). The hospital leaders developed an in-house educational program to transition