In the current healthcare settings, evidence based practice has been widely promoted. I have become aware on how evidence based practice can extensively improve patient outcomes by using evidence based practices in caring for patients with pressure ulcers through the wealth of information being available on the internet. There is no doubt that reading literatures can help improve the quality of patient care practices because the method used have been proven to be effective by obtaining evidences on what practices may be appropriate and ideal for certain conditions (Jette, et al., 2003).
I always use evidence based practices when caring for my patients. This is because the approach in patient care that is based on this approach has been proven to help health practitioners like me in the decision making process under certain circumstances. While this method does not replace clinical expertise (Jewell, 2014), it is very useful when I can use the evidence based research outcome as a basis in addressing certain clinical problems that may have been previously studied to have been very effective under the condition of my patient.
Evidence based practices articles and databases are widely available as online resources and I usually access them on reputable sites such as those referred by the American Physical Therapy Association website, PubMed, and Journal of the American Physical Therapy Association. Many publications are available for free in the internet, making it more convenient for me to access them for free.
In the care of my patient with pressure ulcer, I practice the preventive measure of turning and repositioning the patient with pressure ulcer as a pressure ulcer prevention protocol, which was already been proven to demonstrate a reduction in the pressure ulcer incidence based on evidence based practice on patient safety issue research conducted by Lyder and Ayello (2008). The same protocol is supported by the evidence based research of Cooper (2013), suggesting that turning the patient every two hours can help reduce friction and relieves the skin from trauma that can result in pressure ulcer.
References:
Cooper, K.L. (2013). Evidence-based prevention of pressure ulcers in the intensive care unit. Critical Care Nurse. 33(6):57-66.
Jette, D.U. et al. (2003). Evidence based practice: beliefs, attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors of physical therapists. Physical Therapy. 83(9):786-805.
Jewell, D.V. (2014). Guide to evidence-based physical therapist practice. New York: Jones and Bartlette Publishers.
Lyder, C.H. and Ayello, E.A. (2008). Pressure Ulcers: A Patient Safety Issue. In: Hughes RG, editor. Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US).
