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College of Health Professions Evidence Based Practice Portal - 2022 draft revision

Assess / Adjust

StudentThis page covers the fifth of the five As -- assessing (and if need be, adjusting) the evidence you have acquired, appraised, and applied as is needed to improve your patient's situation or circumstances.  Outcome measures may be psychosocial (quality of life, improved patient perception of care, reduction in depressive and anxiety symptoms), physiologic (improved health, reduced complications), or functional improvement (Melnyk and Fineout-Overholt, 2005).  Many outcomes measures are specific to individual areas of the health sciences, such as hand surgery and therapy.  Broadly, however, the measures that you can use to assess the effectiveness of the EBP process can be grouped into three categories: patient outcomes, practitioner outcomes (or self assessment, or self reflection), and organization or system outcomes.  Each category is discussed in the tabs to the right.

Melnyk, B. M., and Fineout-Overholt, E. (2005). Evidence-based practice in nursing & healthcare: A guide to best practice. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Information on this page is adapted from the Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts, and from the University of South Australia.

Walt Stoneburner. (2009, Mar. 7). Nursing books. Retrieved from
https://www.flickr.com/photos/waltstoneburner/3372684619. Used under the Creative Commons License.

Patient with nursesTo consider the effectiveness of EBP regarding patient outcomes, ask yourself:

  • Was the care plan suitable and appropriate for your patient's unique circumstances?
  • Did you consider your patient's values, beliefs and preferences?
  • Did the patient's health status or quality of life improve?
  • Is the patient satisfied with their treatment?
  • Did the patient's length of hospital stay decrease?
  • Did the patient's number of health care visits decrease?
  • What was the patient's attitude towards the treatment plan?
  • Did the patient comply with the treatment plan?




     
NIH Clinical Center. (2014, Dec. 9). Patient Walking with Nurses. Retrieved from
https://www.flickr.com/photos/clinicalcenternih/27220715631. Used under the Creative Commons License.

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Text on this page is Adapted from the University of South Australia, and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Health professional with smartphone

Nenad Stojkovic. (2021, Oct. 31). Female doctor in uniform taking notes and holding smartphone. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/nenadstojkovic/51651057710. Used under the Creative Commons License.

Led by Sharon Straus, one of the founding practitioners of the EBP movement, the Toronto-based Knowledge Translation Program has developed a set of self evaluation questions you can use to reflect on your performance with the EBP process.  They have also developed a free self evaluation logbook tool.

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This page is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

ExecutiveTo consider the effectiveness of EBP at the organizational or system category, ask yourself:

  • Did you update policies and procedures based on current guidelines?
  • Are the required clinical tools available to implement current guidelines?
  • Did the length of consultation with the medical practitioner decrease?

 

 


 

National Renewable Energy Lab. (2017, Jun. 20). Staff Awards. Retrieved from
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nrel/34609573914. Used under the Creative Commons License.

Creative Commons license logo

Text on this page is Adapted from the University of South Australia, and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

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