Evidence Based Practice: Home

What is Evidence Based Practice?

Evidence based practice (also called evidence based medicine) integrates the best available research evidence, the clinician's expertise, and the patient's preferences, values, concerns, and expectations. 

Evidence-based practice leads to:

• Reduced variations in a clinician's practices
• Enhancement of best practice
• Reduced costs
• Improved quality of health care
• Increased patient satisfaction

There are four steps to successful evidence based practice:

1.  Identify the type of clinical question
2.  Use PICO to structure the question
3.  Identify the study designs that best answer the question
4.  Plan a literature search

This subject guide will take you through the EBP process in detail. It also includes information about appraisal tools used in evidence based practice, and links to our discipline-specific subject guides for more information.

To use this guide, select a step from the menu on the left, or use the arrows at the bottom of each page.