Institute:Office of National Coordinator (ONC) Workforce Training Curriculum
Component:The Culture of Health Care
Unit:Evidence-Based Practice
Lecture:Definition and application of EBM
Slide content:What Is Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM)? A set of tools and a disciplined approach to informing clinical decision making Applies the best evidence available But remember the caveat: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (Martin Rees) Allows clinical experience (art) to be integrated with best clinical science Makes medical literature more clinically applicable and relevant 4
Slide notes:4 This lecture is an introduction to the unit topic, evidence-based medicine. Evidence-based medicine, or EBM [E-B-M], is a set of tools and a disciplined approach to informing clinical decision making. We apply the best scientific evidence available to various clinical questions. We learn to seek out the best evidence and to use it appropriately, but we must remember that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Although this caveat is attributed to Martin Rees, a cosmologist and astrophysicist, its applicability to medicine is pertinent. It means we must consider not only the evidence we have but also evidence that may be missing and how that missing evidence might influence our decision making. EBM allows clinical experienceor the art of medicineto be integrated with the best science, making the medical literature more clinically applicable and relevant.