NUR 699 Week 4 Discussion Evidence-based interventions often involved patient care.
DQ2 Explain why patient values and clinical judgment must be considered before applying evidence in clinical decision making for individual patients.
Evidence-based medicine (EBM) has always required integration of patient values with ‘best’ clinical evidence. It is widely recognized that scientific practices and discoveries, including those of EBM, are value-laden. But to date, the science of EBM has focused primarily on methods for reducing bias in the evidence, while the role of values in the different aspects of the EBM process has been almost completely ignored.
Discussion
In this paper, we address this gap by demonstrating how a consideration of values can enhance every aspect of EBM, including: prioritizing which tests and treatments to investigate, selecting research designs and methods, assessing effectiveness and efficiency, supporting patient choice and taking account of the limited time and resources available to busy clinicians. Since values are integral to the practice of EBM, it follows that the highest standards of EBM require values to be made explicit, systematically explored, and integrated into decision making.
Summary

Through ‘values based’ approaches, EBM’s connection to the humanitarian principles upon which it was founded will be strengthened.
Keywords: Evidence-based medicine, Values, Medical ethics
Go to:
Background
The first decades of Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) were devoted to developing the science of clinical epidemiology and improving the technical means of applying its principles and tools consistently and efficiently. The underpinning research base has been built by refining systematic, rule-bound approaches such as health technology assessment (HTA) [1], comparative effectiveness studies [2], systematic literature review [3], and by ensuring rigorous standards for reporting such studies [4].
These approaches are academically defensible and reproducible but can also be painfully arcane in their procedural and technical detail. Many clinicians have appreciated the increasingly impressive armoury of tools developed to support the practice of EBM but have felt simultaneously overwhelmed by their imperatives. The strong (and perhaps necessary) focus on technical procedure – how to do ‘robust’ research, how to synthesise data from primary studies, how to apply the findings in practice – has created the impression that EBM and its underpinning methodologies are concerned exclusively with matters of fact in an objective scientific environment, with confounders and bias either eliminated or carefully controlled for.
Grading Rubric Guidelines
Performance Category | 10 | 9 | 8 | 4 | 0 |
Scholarliness
Demonstrates achievement of scholarly inquiry for professional and academic decisions. |
|
|
|
|
|
Performance Category | 10 | 9 | 8 | 4 | 0 |
Application of Course Knowledge –
Demonstrate the ability to analyze, synthesize, and/or apply principles and concepts learned in the course lesson and outside readings and relate them to real-life professional situations |
|
|
|
|
|
Performance Category | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
Interactive Dialogue
Replies to each graded thread topic posted by the course instructor, by Wednesday, 11:59 p.m. MT, of each week, and posts a minimum of two times in each graded thread, on separate days. (5 points possible per graded thread) |
|
Summarizes what was learned from the lesson, readings, and other student posts for the week. |
|
|
|
Minus 1 Point | Minus 2 Point | Minus 3 Point | Minus 4 Point | Minus 5 Point | |
Grammar, Syntax, APA
Note: if there are only a few errors in these criteria, please note this for the student in as an area for improvement. If the student does not make the needed corrections in upcoming weeks, then points should be deducted. Points deducted for improper grammar, syntax and APA style of writing. The source of information is the APA Manual 6th Edition |
|
|
|
|
|
0 points lost | -5 points lost | ||||
Total Participation Requirements
per discussion thread |
The student answers the threaded discussion question or topic on one day and posts a second response on another day. | The student does not meet the minimum requirement of two postings on two different days | |||
Early Participation Requirement
per discussion thread |
The student must provide a substantive answer to the graded discussion question(s) or topic(s), posted by the course instructor (not a response to a peer), by Wednesday, 11:59 p.m. MT of each week. | The student does not meet the requirement of a substantive response to the stated question or topic by Wednesday at 11:59 pm MT. |