Using Evidence in Home Care: The Value of a Librarian-Clinician Collaboration—the Clinician’s Role

Abstract

Evidence-based practice is a natural process for the inquiring home care nurse who wants to provide the highest quality of care. A critical step in the process is finding the best evidence and employing appropriate expertise and resources to facilitate the search. This critical step can be more easily accomplished with a collaborative partnership involving a reference librarian and the clinician. In this process, each uses his or her unique expertise to search for the best evidence to support practice decisions. Examples are given of current relevant evidence for health care clinicians and suggestions for how to use the evidence in decision making.