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Considering the significance of the advancement
and development inherent to contemporaneous society
is something that is not at all hard to do. Observing
the various industrial sectors and the dramatic
rates of evolution that they have experienced
in comparison to their counterparts of even as
less as a decade into the past renders this [collective
development] something that is hard to ignore.
Contemplate, for instance, the mass medical industry.
The sector responsible for the physical and mental
health of humans has advanced to a rather monumental
extent.
Medical science has evolved from the point of
having no cure for such ailments as the flu and
pneumonia to [currently] being occupied by respectively
perfecting and heightening a means to cloning
humans and genetic research. And while this considerable
degree of development does indeed indicate a great
step forward, it also calls upon the need for
significantly and comparatively more rigid operational
and qualitative standards within the medical field.
Take into consideration, for instance, the fact
that ‘health care professionals are being
encouraged to ensure that their practice is based
on the best evidence from well-conducted research’
(Glanville & Lefebvre, 2001).
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Basic features and characteristics of Evidence
Based Healthcare [EBHC]
This brings us to the topic of Evidence-Based
Healthcare, which is one of the more recent forms
or operational characteristics that has been introduced
into the healthcare sector. Loosely put, evidence
based healthcare is basically a structured and
systematic set of principles and procedures that
are instrumentally relevant in concern to defining
a particular health problem and searching for
evidence on the particular problem. Evidence based
healthcare [EBHC] basically operates upon the
parameters of critically appraising the available
evidence and subsequently determining the implications
of that evidence so as to ensure its clinical
practicability and applicability. That is to say
that if, for instance, a patient is diagnosed
with AIDS and, maintaining that this is a hypothetical
case, he happens to display symptoms that are
atypical.
Evidence-Based Healthcare [EBHC] would decree
that the respective medical official responsible
for the patient study the condition as extensively
as possible. It is quite evident, thus speaking;
that evidence based health care [EBHC] is basically
an operational paradigm that calls upon the need
of maximum research and of the most recent sort
prior to treating a particular patient. ‘EBHC
involves systematically finding, appraising, and
using contemporaneous research findings as the
basis for clinical decisions’ (Evidence-Based
Healthcare Project, 2004). It would be of extreme
relevance and noteworthiness to here consider
that EBHC basically calls upon the use of [continual]
research in order to ensure that the patient’s
medical requirements are met as maximally as possible.
It would be relevant to consider that it calls
upon an approach that ‘integrates the best
external evidence with individual clinical expertise
and patients' choice, it cannot result in slavish,
cookbook approaches to individual patient care
(Sackett et al, 1996).
In a nutshell, EBHC and the medicine it employs
follow four basic steps. They are; the formulation
of a clear clinical question derived from a patient’s
problem; the search for the literature regarding
relevant clinical articles; an evaluation of (critically
appraise) the evidence so as to determine its
validity and usefulness and; the implementation,
in clinical practice, of the respectively useful
findings (Rosenberg & Donald, 1995). EBHC
thus ensures that clinical practice is based on
the best available evidence through the use of
strategies derived from clinical epidemiology
and medical informatics EBHC basically implies
that it is the integrated combination of preferable
external clinical evidence with effectual individual
clinical expertise that is the best modus operandi
for the contemporaneous healthcare sector. It
must be here considered, thus speaking, that either
of the two, external evidence and individual expertise,
cannot be effectually practiced while there is
an absence of the other.
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A more analytically shaped overview
It is quite apparent, for instance, that extensive
external evidence, rendered via research, would
be wholly useless in the case of the particularly
respective degree of individual clinical expertise
being scarce. Similarly, it is also apparent that
an uncharacteristically high degree of individual
clinical expertise would be limited, in a manner
of speaking, in the case of not being abreast
of the latest in medical breakthroughs. Note that
individual clinical expertise means the proficiency
and judgment that individual clinicians acquire
through clinical experience and clinical practice.
Furthermore, while exceptional expertise is reflected
in many ways; uncharacteristically effective and
efficient diagnosis and more thoughtful identification
and compassionate use of individual patients'
rights, and preferences in making clinical decisions
about their care are the most effective ways to
ensure such reflections.
It is evident therefore, considering that EBCH
fundamentally aims towards providing patients
with an ever-increasing degree of healthcare,
one of the things that become inevitably apparent
is that EBHC is primarily governed by the particular
degree of individual expertise. It is the degree
of specific individual expertise that ultimately
decides ‘whether the external evidence applies
to the individual patient at all and, if so, how
it should be integrated into a clinical decision’
(Gray, 1997). Subsequently, it is obvious that
EBHC is an approach to health care practice in
which the clinician is meant to be fully aware
of the current evidence that bears on the particular
operational parameters of his/her clinical practice.
A clinician effectually adhering to EBHC, moreover,
must be capable of fully evaluating the strength
of that evidence so as to fully calculate the
impact (s) that being aware [or unaware] of the
evidence will bring forth.
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It is evident, thus speaking, that the professional
demands made upon a medical practitioner who plans
on adhering to EBHC are exceptionally and uncharacteristically
high and crucial. This is since staying continually
abreast of contemporary advancements and developments
in the healthcare sector is something that calls
upon a significantly dense level of research and
analysis. Moreover, in addition to this, it is
of utmost gravity for the analysis as well as
the matter to be relevant to the particular illness
or ailment. Basically, it is as a result of the
necessitation of this extensiveness in terms of
personal medical research that brings forth one
of the key issues hindering the widespread prolificacy
of Evidence Based Healthcare [EBHC] as one of
the more adhered to paradigms.
Addressing Evidence-Based Healthcare [EBHC] &
the most prevalent issue inherent to it
Evidence-based medicine and healthcare involves
rigorously evaluating the ‘effectiveness
of healthcare interventions, disseminating the
results of evaluation and using those findings
to influence clinical practice’ (Appleby,
Walshe & Ham, 1995). Put into a more simplistic
frame of words, this indicates that EBHC is a
practice that ascribes to the use of the newest,
top of the line medication (s) and treatment (s)
available for the treatment of a particular patient.
‘It can be a complex task, in which the
production of evidence, its dissemination to the
right audiences, and the implementation of change
can all present problems’ (Appleby et al,
1995).
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Take into further consideration, moreover, the
fact that the preferential time required in order
to effectually comprehend the theoretical tenets
of Evidence Based health care [EBHC], for general
medicine, calls upon time enough to ‘examine
19 articles per day, 365 days per year’
(Davidoff, Sackett & Smith, 1995). The time
available, however, conventionally speaking sums
up to well under an hour a week, as indicated
by research conducted on and by British medical
consultants, even on self reports (Sackett, 1995).
The difficulties that clinicians face in keeping
abreast of all the medical advances reported in
primary journals are thus obvious. While it is
obvious, therefore, that evidence-based research
does indeed bring forth the possibility of maximum
healthcare, the comparison of the time required
[for essential reading (s)] to the time that is
actually available (Sackett, et al, 1996). Clearly,
this is something that significantly hinders the
widespread integration of EBHC into the collective
healthcare sector.
Generalities & Recommendations
This, moreover, is something that is made especially
clear when considering it in light of the already
considerable rate at which new strains of viruses
are being encountered. It is of utmost importance
to here acknowledge that EBHC isn’t actually
a new research module; indeed, it is one that
is generations old. ‘Despite its ancient
origins, however, evidence based medicine remains
a relatively young discipline whose positive impacts
are just beginning to be validated’ (Shin,
Flaynes & Johnston, 1993). However, it is
primarily as a result of the contemporaneous difficulty
and essentiality in concern to keeping continually
abreast of developments that renders it an issue
of such concern. The situation, moreover, is made
even more complex as a result of the fact that
present-day technologies, with the communal integration
of such things as the Internet, has made for a
virtually limitless database of relevant matter.
This renders it practically impossible for an
individual to be fully aware of all the current
developments in his/her particular field. It has
been made quite apparent, however, that integrating
EBHC effectively promotes the collection, interpretation,
and integration of valid, important and applicable
patient-reported, clinician-observed, and research-derived
evidence. The only issue that arises, moreover,
is that of the free time that is typically available
to medical practitioners. This too, however, appears
to be a problem that is, if not completely, then
at least partially solvable. Take into consideration,
for instance, the fact that studies have shown
that medical practitioners who devote what time
they can to research and analysis stand comparatively
greater chances of integrating EBHC into their
practice (s).
[Busy] clinicians who ‘devote their scarce
reading time to selective, efficient, patient
driven searching, appraisal, and incorporation
of the best available evidence can practice evidence
based medicine’ (Sackett et al, 1996). It
is quite apparent, thus speaking and taking into
consideration all that has been said and discussed,
that although EBHC promises a dramatic degree
of evolution of the healthcare sector in the case
of being effectually integrated; there are issues
that remain.
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