Although the phenomenon of evidence-based practice (EBP) is not new to the field of medical practice, both researchers and practitioners are faced with the issue of EBP implementation in the workplace. Scholarly evidence addresses a variety of potential obstacles to the implementation of research into daily operations, namely, organizational and personal barriers. According to Alatawi et al. (2020), the organizational barriers include “lack of support and supervision, lack of training and education, limited resources, and time restriction,” whereas personal barriers tackle “lack of nurses’ knowledge, EBP skills and awareness, nurses’ attitude, and language barrier” (p. 35). Hence, it is reasonable to assume that EBP, despite having come a long way since its early introduction, remains a theoretical concept rather than a practical tool.
In pursuit of gaining a better perspective, I asked my preceptor, who works as a nurse case manager at Memorial Regional Hospital, to reflect on the barriers to implementing EBP on the local level. The preceptor outlined the lack of an individualized approach to the EBP implementation depending on the facility’s labor capacity and funding. For example, when working in a regional hospital, the patient flow and workload, by all means, exceed the financial reward for the nursing duties. As a result, the team experiences a decline in morale and inner motivation for continuous improvement, and neither time nor effort is left for education, training, and EBP implementation.
The process of integrating EBP is a highly complex and sensitive issue that requires nurses’ willingness to learn in the first place. The existing nationwide guidelines on EBP training tend to ignore the fact that nurses feel intimidated by the growing amount of responsibility even if their heart is in the right place. For this reason, in order to ensure a steady and gradual shift to EBP implementation, the hospital administration should take the responsibility of adjusting the guidelines according to the existing workflow and workload per nurse.
Reference
Alatawi, M., Aljuhani, E., Alsufiany, F., Aleid, K., Rawah, R., Aljanabi, S., & Banakhar, M. (2020). Barriers of implementing evidence-based practice in nursing profession: A literature review. American Journal of Nursing Science, 9(1), 35-42. Web.