Evidence Based Practice

Nursing is constantly changing. Florence Nightingale was the beginning of what nursing is today. Way back then she used research and evidenced-based practice as the guide for nursing. She believed that the conditions of the hospitals or areas that the injured were kept had grave impacts on the infection rates that were infecting the injured soldiers. Florence Nightingale used her skills of mathematics to keep statistical data on the infection rates before and after having sanitized wards (Shetty, 2016). To achieve better patient care and patient outcomes nurses need to obtain new knowledge and use this new knowledge to help their patients. Research and evidenced-based practice are ways for nurses to improve their knowledge of the nursing practice.

Research in healthcare is used to answer a question or to test a method about how something effects another. Connor (2014) states that research is about investigation, exploration, and discovery. Research is also about creating a dynamic environment for promoting healthcare, health, and wellness. There are two different types of research: quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative research is a numerical way to collect data and using it to obtain information. Ingham-Broomfield (2014) refers to quantitative research as a means for testing objective theories by looking at relationships among variables and that the word quantitative implies quantity or amounts. Qualitative research is more of a verbal research method. It looks at life experiences and gives meaning to them (Connor. 2014). Evidence-based practice is integrating research with clinical nursing (Stevens, 2013). Evidence-based practice is about taking the research that has been done on something and putting it into practice and making it a standard way of practice. An example would be the sterile technique for Foley catheter insertion. Through research we know that infections are higher among patients with Foley catheters, but with using the standardized evidenced-based practice for sterile technique there is a major decrease in the amount of infections among these