peer response essay

1 L————–Discuss why EBP is an essential component of the practice of a BSN-prepared RN. Identify two ways in which you will continue to integrate evidence into your practice and encourage it within your work environment. What obstacles could challenge this plan, and what steps will you take to minimize their impact?

EBP is an essential component of the practice of a BSN prepared RN. “EBP unifies research evidence with clinical expertise and encourages individualization of care through inclusion of patient preferences” (Nursing World, 2013). The purpose of EBP is to standardize healthcare practices to science and best evidence. This is to make nursing practices a standard and eliminates confusion. With standardized and evidence based care, nurses can continue to improve patient and have quality outcomes.

There are two way that I can continue to integrate evidence into my practice. They are both ways of communication. It is important to have ongoing communication with nurse leaders and managers. They are important resources within the institution. If there is a new initiative that needs to be discussed, they would have the means of obtaining approvals by management (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2014). Additionally it is important to maintain rapport with the floor nurses. They are the frontline staff and will give you the honest feedback you need to be able to tell if the outcomes are improving.

Obstacles that could challenge this plan are lack of time and resistance. I have found that even though a new practice has been proven to be more effective, faster, and has a better outcome, people will resist the change for the better. They would rather continue practice the old way because it’s what they know. Even if it takes them longer to do so. They do not want to take the time from their already busy day to learn something new. To overcome this, you may have to reintroduce the practice to the staff multiple times and have an open discussion about reasons and rationale of why they are resistant. Change takes time and you have to be patient.

2 J———“Increasingly, research findings are being used as the basis for clinical decisions” (McLaughlin & Sanchez, 2017, p. 91). Changes in nursing include using evidence-based research to care for patients in order to improve safety and provide quality care, while reducing health care costs. Bachelor prepared nurses are taught about the importance of using evidence-based practice, how to critically appraise research, and how to find the most up to date research for nursing practice. “Evidence-based practice has been highlighted recently because of changes in the health care environment, and it is imperative to educate nurses and future nurses to have competency in the EBP environment” (Oh et al., n.d., p. 390). Nurses need to have a bachelor’s degree or higher for this reason.

In order to integrate evidence into nursing practice, this nurse will need to continue learning throughout her career. Things are always changing in health care, so this nurse will need to read evidence-based journals and keep up with changes in nursing practice. Another way to integrate evidence into practice would be to stay involved with the American Nurses Association (ANA). The ANA provides webinars and important information regarding nursing practice. As this nurse learns about new evidence-based practices that could help her facility, she can share them with her fellow coworkers and leaders within the clinic. Now that this nurse has some practice writing proposals, she could submit a proposal to make a practice change to improve patient care.

Obstacles include the lack of support by leadership and funding for a research project. This nurse has a medical director that supports evidence-based practice and research at the clinic. If he thought that a project would improve patient care, he would help gather support for the project from leadership and medical staff. According to Cullen, Dawson, Hanrahan, & Dole (2014), “…. leadership support for evidence-based practice can be leveraged by outlining the similarities between evidence-based practice and existing quality improvement processes and structures and then synergistically blending them” (p. 278). Funding can be an issue but writing grants or asking for donations from the local tribes could be an option. “Obtaining money for research is becoming increasingly competitive, thus voluntary foundations and private and community-based organizations should be investigated as possible funding sources” (McLaughlin, R.A., & Sanchez, Z.V., 2017, p. 93).

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The clinic staff know that change is ongoing and is needed to improve patient care. If a change is needed, it will be important to educate, answer questions, develop written polices and workflows, and perform a pilot study on the change. Staff will need continuous support and frequent meetings to monitor compliance with the change.