A Whole New Ballgame: Teaching Evidence Based Practice in the Hospital

Abstract

Objective: A CE course was created for librarians and nurses to educate both groups on the use of Evidence-Based Practice in the hospital setting. We want to expand this course to suit other health professionals. Setting: A Health Sciences University in Georgia. Design: Three Librarians worked together to create a comprehensive review of Evidence-Based Practice (EBP). The course was created in three parts to cover the basics tenets of EBP, how to apply EBP to the hospital setting, and integrating patient preferences into EBP and patient care. MLA CE credit was obtained for Librarians and Georgia Nursing Association contact hours were obtained for nurses. Participants were given a pre-test and post. IRB approval was granted by the hospital and the academic institution. Findings: Through numerous classes taught to both nurses and librarians we found that EBP knowledge was improved after the 3 hour course. Comments revealed some areas for improvement. Both groups wanted more techniques for evaluating articles to determine if they are evidence-based and wanted more details on statistical information found in these articles. Nurses wanted more information on how to directly apply results, and how to conduct evidence-based research themselves. Conclusion: Because the use of EBP is spreading to more health professions, we are working on redesigning the course to appeal to a wider audience. Physicians have opportunities to receive EBM training, but there are fewer training avenues for nursing and allied health professionals outside of academia. We hope to redevelop our course to appeal to these groups and bring EBP from the colleges into the practice setting.