Evaluating the Impact of an Evidence Based Practice Education Program in a Nurse Residency Program on Evidence Based Practice Beliefs, Implementation and Competency

For organizations to ensure that they are providing safe and quality patient care, they must promote a culture of care based on Evidence Based Practice (EBP). To improve healthcare quality nurses must make care decisions based on the most current scientific evidence. In fact the Institute of Medicine set a goal that 90% of clinical decisions be evidence based by 2020 (Institute of Medicine, 2008). Unfortunately it can take up to 15-20 years for newly discovered treatments to be implemented into patient care (Institute of Medicine, 2001). Healthcare providers continue to base healthcare decisions on outdated practices derived from tradition or what they learned years ago in the academic setting (Melnyk et al., 2021). Because nurses are the nation’s largest healthcare profession, they have a front line view of patient care problems that need to be addressed (Friesen et al., 2017). Nurses are positioned to be leaders in identification and implementation of EBP to address those problems. Implementation of EBP can be challenging due to a process that can be viewed as complex and is reliant upon an organization that supports a culture of EBP (Melnyk & Fineout-Overholt, 2016; Saunders et al., 2016)