What is Evidence-Based Medicine?
After thinking about your own definition, here’s how the literature defines EBM:
Evidence-based medicine (EBM) has been described as “the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients.”1 It is a method of solving clinical problems that stresses the examination of clinical research rather than relying on intuition and clinical experience alone.2
The need for EBM
- Medical research is continually discovering improved treatment methods and therapies
- Research findings are often delayed in being implemented into clinical practice
- Clinicians must stay current with changing therapies
- Evidence-based practice has been shown to keep clinicians up to date
1. Sackett D, Rosenberg W, Gray J, Haynes R, Richardson W. Evidence based medicine: what it is and what it isn’t. BMJ 1996; 312:71-2.
2. Guyatt Gordon; Drummond Rennie. Users’ guides to the medical literature : a manual for evidence-based clinical practice. Chicago: AMA Press; 2002. p. 706.