Barriers to Evidence-Based Practice

Topic: Healthcare Research
Words: 294 Pages: 1

Several individual and organizational barriers make it difficult for health professionals to embrace and apply evidence-based practices. Specifically, a lack of resources and support from the hospital administration is a significant drawback (Greenhalgh et al., 2019). For example, if a nurse researcher wishes to study the causes of recurrent infections among inpatients and there is no money allocated, it will be impossible to get the facts. In addition, when there is no support from the administrators to encourage staff to continually conduct investigations and integrate their findings into their daily activities. Moreover, many clinicians are often understaffed, making it difficult to spare time for scientific inquiries (Greenhalgh et al., 2019). The nurses may lack the necessary competencies to apply and evaluate research evidence before integration into policies. Last but not least, failure to access libraries with relevant journals and evidence-based practice make it difficult to find other evidence for implementation.

The healthcare professionals who use EBP in their institution use it to make decisions that have already been proven to enhance the quality of care and patient outcomes. The implication is that healthcare costs are reduced as budgetary allocations depend on good performance (Greenhalgh et al., 2019). The hospital can achieve higher financial sustainability as the extra money is channelled to quality programs to streamline the activities and reduce the workload on the service providers. Moreover, medical errors and trial procedures on sick people are stopped because the nurses select the treatment options proven to work. Resultantly, the prognosis of patients is likely to be faster as they enhance their quality of life within the shortest period after assessment. Thus, the cost effective nature of EBP ensures that administrators decide to invest in quality outcomes for the institution, the service providers, and the clients.

References

Greenhalgh, T. M., Bidewell, J., Warland, J., Lambros, A., & Crisp, E. (2019). Understanding research methods for evidence-based practice in health. John Wiley & Sons.