Description

COURSE:

NURS 6052 – Essentials of Evidence-Based Practice

In your practice as a nurse, you may use procedures and methods that did not necessarily originate in evidence but instead were derived from informal and unwritten conventions, traditions, and observations. While these techniques may have merit, practices are constantly being updated and contradicted by information from scholarly research studies and professional guidelines. This new information serves as “evidence” for revising practices to improve outcomes across health care.

Based on this evidence, you can formulate a question. In this Discussion, you consider the use of evidence-based practice in your own organization and formulate a question that you will need to answer for your portfolio project. This is called a PICOT question. You will also investigate strategies for overcoming barriers to implementing evidence-based practice (EBP).

To prepare:

• Consider a recent clinical experience in which you were providing care for a
• Determine the extent to which the care that you provided was based on evidence and research findings or supported only by your organization’s standard procedures. How do you know if the tasks were based on research?
• What questions have you thought about in a particular area of care such as a procedure or policy?
• Review Chapter 2, pages 36—39 on “Asking Well worded Clinical Questions” in Polit & Beck and consult the resource from the Walden Student Center for Success: Clinical Question Anatomy & examples of PICOT questions (found in this week’s Learning Resources). Formulate your background questions and PICOT
• Reflect on the barriers that might inhibit the implementation of evidence-based practice in your clinical
• Review the article “Adopting Evidence-Based Practice in Clinical Decision Making” in this week’s Learning Resources. Select one of the barriers described that is evident in your organization and formulate a plan for overcoming this

By Day 3

Post an evaluation of the use, or lack thereof, of EBP in a recent clinical experience. Identify which aspects of the care delivered, if any, were based on evidence and provide your rationale. List your background questions and PICOT question about this nursing topic.

Critique how the policies, procedures, and culture in your organization may hinder or support the adoption of evidence-based practices. Identify the barrier you selected from the article and explain how this barrier could be overcome within your organization.

SOLUTION

Evidence-Based Practice in a Clinical Experience

Working in the intensive care unit (ICU) has been a very rewarding experience. As ICU nurses, we admit patients who are at the lowest point of their health and hopefully help them get better to heal. Unfortunately, we also see patients who have reached their lowest point because of cardiac arrest. The patients who do not regain consciousness after a successful resuscitation are put on a therapeutic hypothermia protocol. This protocol is a medical treatment that lowers the patient’s body temperature to decrease neurological damage after cardiac arrest. The advanced cardiovascular life support (ACLS) protocol states that therapeutic hypothermia should be started within six hours of cardiac arrest. The patient needs to reach a goal temperature between 32 and 34 degrees Celsius within……………………………………$5