EMS and Evidence-Based Medicine Solutions

Challenging ALS and BLS standards of emergency medicine to improve patient outcomes and satisfaction

By Guillermo Fuentes

The term “evidence-based practice” has been used in EMS for more than a decade. The reality is, as a profession, we fail to understand what implementing an evidence-based practice actually means.

One of the most influential thinkers on the subject, the late physician David Sackett, defined evidence-based medicine as “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” [1]. Using this definition, let’s take a look at the current state of the EMS profession and see how we measure up.

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