Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP): A Guide to McFarlin Library Resources

Evidence Based Practice (EBP) is a process of “integrating the best available research evidence with clinical expertise and the patient’s unique values and circumstances” (Straus, Glasziou, Richardson, & Haynes, 2011).

Image retrieved from UC Davis Library (n.d.).

Straus, S. E., Glasziou, P., Richardson, W. S., & Haynes, R. B. (2011). Evidence-based medicine: How to practice and teach it (4th ed.). Churchill Livingstone Elsevier.

Besides keeping health care practices relevant and current, evidence-based practice in nursing offers a range of other benefits to you and your patients:

• Promotes positive patient outcomes
• Reduces health care costs by preventing complications 
• Contributes to the growth of the science of nursing
• Allows for incorporation of new technologies into health care practice
• Increases nurse autonomy and confidence in decision-making
• Ensures relevancy of nursing practice with new interventions and care protocols 
• Provides scientifically supported research to help make well-informed decisions
• Fosters shared decision-making with patients in care planning
• Enhances critical thinking 
• Encourages lifelong learning

What is evidence-based practice in nursing? (2023, May 5). ANA. https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/nursing-excellence/evidence-based-practice-in-nursing/.

• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

AHRQ's mission is "to improve the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care for all Americans. The Agency fulfills this mission by conducting health care services research which examines how people get access to health care, how much care costs, and what happens as a result of the care they receive." Look in particular at the EPC Evidence Based Reports

• American College of Physicians Clinical Practice Guidelines

"ACP's goal is to provide clinicians with recommendations based on the best available evidence; to inform clinicians of when there is no evidence; and finally, to help clinicians deliver the best health care possible."

• Centers for Evidence Based Medicine

"CEBM.net is a microsite dedicated to the dissemination of evidence reviews about the coronavirus pandemic."