A tool for change: "Evidence-based Medicine"

Abstract

Evidence-based Medicine(EBM) combines the expertise of the individual clinician with the best external evidence from clinical research into a rational ethical and efficacious practice. EBM constitutes a new paradigm for medical practi­ce, in the sense that it tries to transform clinical problems into well formulated clinical questions, selecting and critically appraising the scientific evidence available using predefined strictrigo­rous criteria. Modem medical practice is an ever­ changing process, and the needs of the doctors for information have been partially met by con­tinuous medical education activities, which have been shown not to stop the well-known fact that clinical knowledge, as well as medical practice, deteriorates with time. The busy clinician has two major problems whenfaced with the need to get the most recent and relevant information possi­ble: most of the published medical literature is either irrelevant or not useful and he/she has scarce time left for reading it. EBM can be thou­ght and practiced by physicians with different degrees of autonomy, with several subspecialti­es, working in the hospital or in outpatient cli­nics, alone or in groups.