Nurses Working in Hospital Settings, Essay Example

It is necessary to base clinical decisions on evidence-based practice to ensure that selected techniques can reasonable improve safety and efficacy of treatments (Bjork et al., 2011). Any information would be considered too weak for me to rely on to make an informed decision provided that there are few sources that validate the concept and that the conclusions drawn from a study appear to be inaccurate or invalid for a given patient population. In the maternity ward, it is essential to only take actions that are based on sound evidence because errors can negatively impact the health of both the expecting mother and her unborn child.

In my own practice, I would only implement a change after first analyzing available evidence on my own and then discussing it with colleagues if it appears that the evidence is sound. This will involve synthesizing evidence from renowned maternity journals such as The American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing and other and reviewing the information to determine whether it builds upon the team’s current understanding of best practices (van Teijlingen et al., 2011). It is necessary to confirm that the evidence-based practice was deemed to be valuable in several similar cases before it is applied and that it will provide reasonable benefit.

Generalizability is useful in research findings because it allows clinicians to apply techniques that are appropriate in one field to the treatment of patients in another. This allows researchers to apply an understanding of information as it pertains to a single field to determine potential benefit for different patient populations. It is important to ensure that evidence-based decisions are made in accordance to best practice. To ensure that I follow this requirement, I closely follow CDC and ANA recommendations in addition to regularly reviewing literature relevant to maternity practice. It is important for all nurses to remain aware of the latest findings to determine whether they can reasonably be incorporated in treatment and care protocols.

References

Bjork IT, Hamilton GA. (2011). Clinical Decision Making of Nurses Working in Hospital Settings. Nursing Research and Practice, 2011: 1-8.

vanTeijlingen ER, Simkhada B, Ireland JCM, Simkhada PP, Bruce J. (2011). Evidence-based health care in Nepal: The importance of systematic reviews. Nepal Journal of Epidemiology, 1(4).