ACTIVITY 12: TRANSLATION OF EVIDENCE INTO PHARMACY PRACTICE
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) introduced the term evidence-based medicine (EBM) as
a medical subject heading to PubMed in 1997. It is defined as: “An approach of practicing medicine with
the goal to improve and evaluate patient care. It requires the judicious integration of best research
evidence with the patient’s values to make decisions about medical care. This method is to help
physicians make proper diagnosis, devise best testing plan, choose best treatment and methods of
disease prevention, as well as develop guidelines for large groups of patients with the same disease.”
This definition originated from a 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
The evidence is retrieved from the published medical literature, and it is ranked according to the study
design or type of paper.
Pharmacists should be well versed in EBM, so they may answer clinical questions with accuracy.
EBM also allows the pharmacist to better scrutinize physician orders so as to identify a more suitable
medication or a less expensive alternative. Since its introduction, evidence-based medicine (EBM) has
become a cornerstone of medical, pharmacy, nursing, and other health discipline education and daily
clinical practice. Pharmacy curricula contain many EBM courses, as well as courses in critical appraisal
and statistics, and EBM is also applied throughout pharmacotherapy courses and experiential rotations
(in the form of journal clubs and case presentations).
Intuitively, we might assume that the same is happening within pharmacy practice, whereby
only those activities with supporting evidence are being performed by pharmacists and pharmacy
technicians, especially in the current environment of limited resources. Unfortunately, we don’t have to
look far to see examples where that assumption could be challenged, such as the case of medication
reconciliation.
(Retrieve from https://www/ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5587036/)
Guide Questions:
1. Explain briefly the importance of EBM in the health care system.
EBM or Evidence-based Medicine will help in providing the best, efficient and cost-effective medicines
with minimal to no harm to the patients. It can also help in suggesting or choosing the best medical plan
that can effectively help the patient based on the evidences or cases that can be found in literature.
EBM can enhance the delivery of the quality of overall healthcare to the patients, as this will use
updated information and the latest and updated research articles related to therapeutic cases to the
clinicians and physician. Clinicians can also have the best efficient data and knowledge available for
making the best treatment plans and decisions.
EBM, overall will provide better outcome for the treatment and medication plans for the patient.
Logically applies Evidence based data and knowledge will help in determining, and improving the overall
healthcare outcomes and result.
