Evidence-based healthcare and medical management

Abstract

Introduction: In this chapter, we describe what evidence-based healthcare is, how it impacts on the role of the medical or clinical director, and what mechanisms medical managers should have in place to implement evidence-based medicine in a healthcare organization. What is evidence-based medicine? Sackett et al.1 define evidence-based medicine as 'the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients'. Practising evidence-based medicine means integrating the clinician's individual clinical expertise with the best available clinical evidence from systematic research. By individual clinical expertise, we mean the proficiency and judgment clinicians have acquired as a result of their clinical experience and clinical practice, which, of course, they constantly update with ongoing further training. Clinicians demonstrate this expertise through more effective and efficient diagnosis and in effectively understanding and implementing patients' concerns, rights and preferences when making clinical decisions about their care. [excerpt]