Evidence Based Practice Reflection

The process of becoming an adult learner has been a difficult decision. Over twenty years ago, I graduated from a three year hospital based nursing diploma program. During this time evidence based practice consisted of nursing case studies and nursing diagnoses with written rationales using the term “as evidence by”. Clinical rotations involved retrieving your patient information, prior to your clinical assignment and looking up diagnoses to develop a nursing care plan the following day. Evidence based care became imperative in nursing after common practices and procedures produced “burning questions”. The major question became how a nursing procedure can be performed better with measurable outcomes (Blais and Hayes, 2016). Pursing my baccalaureate in nursing has adequately prepared me for evidence based practice by removing the intimidation I often felt when reading medical journals. Prior to taking this course and the required elective statistics course at my local community college, I fell in the category of basing my nursing practice on previous nursing education, colleague recommendations and work experience (Eizenberg, 2010). This particular course has expanded my knowledge of evidence based practice with article readings, peer discussion groups and research, which to my surprise, I have thoroughly enjoyed.

My present case management position consist of more social issues verses medical issues. Unfortunately, we don’t have a medical library on site. However, as a medical professional we have access to reliable database sources such as MEDLINE and Allied Health Literature. Funding is limited and the majority of our resources are obtained though the statewide medical database computer system. Considering the organizational hierarchy of the public health I have felt “powerless and with limited authority to introduce changes” in my workplace (Eizenberg, 2010