michigan informatics

The Evidence-Based Process

Evidence-based practice may be thought of as a structured process with 5 steps: Ask, Acquire, Appraise, Apply, and Assess.

1. Ask
   The first step is to define your problem as a searchable question. You need to be able to state clearly what exactly it is that you are asking.
2. Acquire
   The second step is to search for and to acquire the information that you need. This includes choosing appropriate sources of information, searching them effectively, and then accessing the needed documents.
3. Appraise
   The next step is to appraise the results of your search. Are the study designs rigorous enough? Are the results valid? Can they be generalized? Are they applicable to your population?
4. Apply
   Once you have a satisfactory amount of evidence, you will apply it to your situation.
5. Assess
   And finally, you need to assess the results of your intervention, program, or policy.

For this tutorial on finding information to support evidence-based practice the focus will be on Acquiring the evidence, with additional information on Appraising the evidence.