The demand for evidence-based practice by multiple stakeholders, including consumers and payors, has placed nurse practitioners (NPs) in the position of needing to stay abreast of the latest guideline-directed medical therapies to treat their patient population. However, NPs often face barriers, such as lack of time, access, or knowledge, to incorporate evidence into clinical practice. Furthermore, when the evidence is located, NPs need the skills to critically appraise and evaluate it for validity and applicability in daily practice. Appraisal involves making a judgment about the quality of the data, not just accepting the findings at face value, to determine if the authors’ conclusions are data-driven. Appraisal also involves assessing the clinical significance of the findings. NPs can do this by asking themselves, for example, whether a new treatment strategy provides a strong enough improvement in clinical outcomes to be useful in clinical practice. This type of appraisal involves evaluating both the clinical and statistical significance of a finding. It is not enough to have a statistically significant p value; the significance needs to result in a marked change in the patient’s status. Once clinical significance is appraised, NPs need to determine the applicability of the findings by asking if the change in practice is relevant to their particular patient population or setting. A final aspect of appraisal is an assessment of whether the findings are similar across studies to warrant a practice change. This month’s special cardiovascular edition serves as a resource for NPs and other clinicians who treat patients with cardiovascular conditions. NP experts volunteered to write papers on selected topics. Authors were asked to appraise the latest evidence, including revisions to existing clinical guidelines, to offer readers recommendations for updating their clinical practice. Some papers are primers to help NPs get up to speed on a subject (eg, device therapy or interpretation of 12-lead ECGs). Our hope is that readers will ask themselves if their current practice already incorporates these recommendations. If not, readers should ask whether the practice recommendation should be implemented to improve patient outcomes. As guest editor, I challenge each reader to participate in (or lead) a journal club to discuss how evidence can serve as a foundation for clinical decision making. It is through activities such as these that NPs can improve health outcomes for their patients.