Evidence-based Practice or EBP is clinical decision-making based on the "current best evidence" made up of three components: external research, clinical expertise and the patients' values and preferences. Dr. David Sackett described it as “the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of the individual patient. (Sackett D, 1996).
"The practice of evidence based medicine means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research. By individual clinical expertise we mean the proficiency and judgment that individual clinicians acquire through clinical experience and clinical practice. Increased expertise is reflected in many ways, but especially in more effective and efficient diagnosis and in the more thoughtful identification and compassionate use of individual patients' predicaments, rights, and preferences in making clinical decisions about their care. By best available external clinical evidence we mean clinically relevant research, often from the basic sciences of medicine, but especially from patient centered clinical research into the accuracy and precision of diagnostic tests (including the clinical examination), the power of prognostic markers, and the efficacy and safety of therapeutic, rehabilitative, and preventive regimens."
DL Sackett, WM Rosenburg, JA Gray, RB Haynes, WS Richardson. Evidence-based medicine: what it is and it isn't. BMJ, 312 (1996), pp. 71–72
Image source: Florida state university, college of medicine. Ethical practice of evidence-based medicine: A review for plastic surgeons. Indian J Plast Surg. 2013 Jan-Apr; 46(1): 11–17. doi: 10.4103/0970-0358.113701 Copyright © Indian Journal of Plastic Surgery. Copyright license: Open-access. Unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction permitted with attribution.
