United States is concerning.
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Reading that Evidence based practice (EBP) is currently only at 15% in United States is concerning. EBP is defined as “integration of best research evidence with clinical expertise and patient values. … EBP is aimed at hardwiring current knowledge into common care decisions to improve care processes and patient outcomes” (The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 2013). I am sure that if you asked any nurse if they wanted the best for their patients they would say yes. So, why are we only at 15%? The American Association of Colleges of Nursing has listed a few barriers as to why EVB is not being carried out. Two of the barriers listed by the association are: (1) lack of time to locate and synthesize knowledge and (2) negative attitudes towards research and EBP (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2013). One can see how lack of time could be a contributing factor as to why our percentage is so low. Most nurses have busy lives outside of work and usually do not have the time to sit and research EBP. One can also see how negative attitudes could affect EBP for example, bedside shift report. From experience, most nurses who have been in practice for a while are against bedside shift report even though it is proven EBP, because they are set in their ways. A suggestion that could help these two examples would be to assign mandatory learning activities to employees. By doing this the nurses would actually have to sit down and review evidence based practice. To make sure nurses are providing EBP after completing the learning modules it requires leadership oversight in order to hold nurses accountable.
