Nurse’s Inability to Link Research to Practice and Inadequate Resources

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BARRIERS TO EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE
The Institute of Medicine proposal for the U.S toattain a 90% evidence-based practice level by 2020 may turn out to be a mission impossible considering the numerous barriers to its effective realization. Given that we currently have a 15% level, and only one year to 2020, it may seem that not so much can be accomplishedtoward this end. The barriers to the realization of 90% evidence-based practice level and ways of addressing them will be discussed.
The first barrier is the nurse’s inability to link research to practice(Brown et al., 2014). Evidence-based practice requires that research findings be gradually incorporated into practice to improve healthcare quality. However, the disconnect between research and practice makes it increasingly difficult for nurses to assimilate the new findings into practice. This is exacerbated by the fact that the nursing profession is considered a junior healthcare profession whose findings cannot inform a change in the healthcare processes (Brown et al., 2014). To attain a 90% evidence-based practice level by 2020, this barrier must be addressed. One of the ways of addressing this barrier is to give the nursing profession more autonomy and its subsequent recognition as an independent profession with a standalone body of knowledge. This will necessitate the incorporation of best evidence into nursing practice thereby improving healthcare quality and patient care outcomes. When nurses have autonomy to influence structural and...