Evidence Based Practice Essay

Evidence-Based Practice is essential in providing quality patient care. Prior to my studies at WGU, I used personal experience, advice from other nurses, and what I observed as the best possible outcome for patients. Now, I believe evidence-based practice means providing quality care and treatment based on clinical expertise combined with current clinical evidence supported by research.

The tasks in Evidence-Based Practice course helped me to develop professionally. EBP task one helped me have a better understanding for research and how relevant it is in nursing. Research is important in providing evidence to support nursing knowledge and hypothesis. EBP task two taught me the skills to utilize research in my everyday nursing practice.

Primary research is when the author who wrote the research article also performed the research themselves. Specifically, primary research is used to establish a new idea and prove the theory utilizing scientific evidence. Secondary research is considered research conducted by someone other than the author. Secondary research is appropriate to use when determining to use a common practice based on evidence in a new setting. This course helped me write a report using secondary research to evaluate primary research articles and discard the ones not relevant to the research.

The key to finding the proper research is relevancy and believability. An article should not be considered as a source if it is not relevant to the research. Also, the article used as a source in research should be based on fact and is considered to be believable.

Quality improvement is considered common practice in medical facilities as well as in nursing practice. Data is utilized to monitor the outcome of care processes in nursing care. When a problem is discovered, medical facilities want to take immediate action to improve quality care and patient outcomes. Once corrective action is taken, the changes must be supported by data. At this point, research becomes important in the development process. Research involves developing a theory, analysis and evaluation to provide a conclusion based on