Maintaining And Updating EBP Skills

Maintaining and Updating Knowledge and Skills:

Testing and teaching EBP skills in the form of a yearly competency are equally important and send the notable message that EBP skills are as important as clinical skills. An organization’s research and EBP council may be the appropriate group to organize this annual competency. One approach is to focus on one aspect of EBP and provide education and learning assessment activities for that skill. For example, provide a demonstration of searching for the evidence in PubMed in the form of a grand rounds presentation or through a self-learning module. Some other topics that may be considered include: Reading and critiquing research articles, participating in a journal club, PICO: Asking the clinical

Clinicians need to see organizational leaders using evidence in their own practice and promoting clinical staff to do so also. When people in organizational leadership roles “walk the talk,” it sends a positive message about the importance and value of EBP. Highlighting successful practice initiatives that resulted from EBP is another motivational technique. Healthcare practitioners want to make the best clinical decisions to promote the best patient outcomes and will value knowing of their colleagues’ accomplishments. Education is not sufficient to embed EBP into the practice environment. For EBP to become mainstream in the organization, the culture must support EBP, and practitioners must have the authority to change practice (Rycroft-Malone et al.,

Each has advantages and disadvantages that make them more useful in some organizations than in others. Common elements in most models include a process that identifies practice questions and reviews current research, best evidence, existing clinical practice and practice guidelines, and other available data such as quality outcome data, national standards, and benchmark data. Additionally, EBP models often include an organized process to systematically implement and continually evaluate the effectiveness of practice change over time (Goode, C. J., et al.,