Graduate Nursing Education as a Conduit to Embed Evidence-Based Practice in Home Health Care

Abstract

Historically, nurses have relied on traditions, clinical expertise, and expert opinion as a foundation for practice. Although these sources of knowledge are important and valued in nursing, the approach is unsystematic and not always based on scientific evidence. Although medicine used evidence-based practice (EBP) guidelines in their practice for decades, nurses have only recently embraced this concept. The purpose of this article is to describe the implementation of an EBP clinical practicum for graduate nursing students designed to (a) engage graduate nursing students in a collaborative relationship with a clinical nurse specialist (CNS) who is practicing in the home health care arenas, (b) provide CNS students with a framework for translating research to effect advanced clinical practice, and (c) provide opportunities for CNS students to critically evaluate the applicability and adaptability of evidence for the specific needs of the patient and the home health agency.