Evidence-Based Medicine is the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. The practice of evidence-based medicine means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research.
By individual clinical expertise we mean the proficiency and judgement that individual clinicians acquire through clinical experience and clinical practice. By best available external clinical evidence we mean clinically relevant research, often from the basic sciences of medicine, but especially from patient centred clinical research into the accuracy and precision of diagnostic tests (including the clinical examination), the power of prognostic markers, and the efficacy and safety of therapeutic, rehabilitative, and preventive regimens. External clinical evidence both invalidates previously accepted diagnostic tests and treatments and replaces them with new ones that are more powerful, more accurate, more efficacious, and safer.
There are 4 levels of evidence:
1. Meta-analysis
2. Controlled trials (RCT’s)
3. Observational trials
4. Expert opinions
Lit: Sackett, D. et al. Evidence based medicine: what it is and what it isn’t (Editorial). British medical journal 1996: 312:71-72
EVIDENCE BASED MEDICINE
« Back to Glossary Index