One Nurse’s Experience with Evidence-Based Practice

Learning Years

I have had a few experiences with evidence-based practice (EBP) in my nursing life, the first being in nursing school and again in my nurse residency program project. I had another glimpse of it using the Johns Hopkins Nursing Evidence-Based Practice (JHNEBP) model in my master’s program.

These experiences helped set me up for success, but I was still surprised at the depth of a full EBP project as a project leader, without the structure of a classroom.

Real World Application

The team (six of us) worked on an EBP project titled, “Best Practices in Fall Prevention from Recent Literature.” Our aim was to look into recent literature from the last 3 years since the hospital’s Fall Prevention Policy was due for an update.

The team searched the literature for evidence-based practices to inform hospital policy. The team also asked for assistance from Welch Library informationists to perform the multi-database literature search.

Once we had articles, we did a title and abstract review—then it was time for the full article appraisals. Having the appraisal tool and the summary tool (appendix G) open together helps while reviewing articles, because appendix G is what we decided to collate and share as a group—not each article appraisal tool. I also filled these out electronically to minimize paper printing since I am 100% an article printer (gotta have my highlighter and coffee nearby when reading).

Once all of the individual appendix G’s were filled out, we met together as a group and reviewed the evidence to synthesize our findings and make recommendations for translation into practice.

Having the appendices from JHNEBP model filled out made it easy to transform our project into an EBP poster for the Center for Nursing Inquiry’s annual SHINE Conference (formerly Nursing Scholars Day.) While it seems like a lot at first to have to go through every single appendix in the JHNEBP model, it is worth it to help with project management and is also very self-explanatory to work through each document.

When thinking about lessons learned through this whole process, I will say that two hour meetings are necessary to complete the EBP appendices as a group. One hour is just not enough. Also use your resources such as the EBP section of Johns Hopkins Center for Nursing Inquiry’s website, medical library, and other subject matter experts.

If you’re interested in learning more about the JHNEBP tools, see the Center for Nursing Inquiry’s podcast; we’re working on a series featuring the tools.

________________________________________________________________

About the Author: Holley Farley, M.S.N., R.N. is the Nursing Coordinator for Clinical Quality at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Holley has served?as CUSP champion,?safety ambassador, and quality improvement champion.?Holley is passionate about quality improvement initiatives.?