The provision of quality care is at the core of the healthcare system in the country. Researchers and medical health experts propose various models for the achievement of the quality and safety objectives in healthcare. Donald Berwick and colleagues introduced the Triple Aim in 2008 as a framework for the delivery of high value in medical organizations (Sikka, Morath, & Leape, 2015). The model later expanded to include a fourth element to inform the redesigning of the health care system and to address challenges that affect individual and population health. Although other approaches of achieving Quadruple Aim may exist, applying the EBP model will assist care providers in improving quality in the four areas, including patient experience, population health, costs, and work-life of healthcare providers.
Healthcare providers should strive to improve health care for individuals and communities by focusing on the Quadruple Aim. Evidence-based practice is the most effective way to gather relevant knowledge to use in practice through empirical inquiry (Melnyk & Fineout-Overholt, 2018). To improve patient experience, nurses and other care providers should research ways to enhance the safety and quality of services, such as ways of preventing adverse drug effects and hospital-acquired infections. The use of such evidence will improve patient satisfaction with services provided in a hospital.
EBP applies to population health to improve healthcare at the individual and community levels. For example, nurses and other medical experts should adopt the culture of empirical inquiry to generate a quantitative baseline for capacity building through health promotion and education targeting population health to promote patient outcomes (Melnyk, Gallagher-Ford, Long, & Fineout-Overholt, 2014). Such effort will ensure that all programs are founded on adequate evidence of effectiveness to prevent misuse of community resources.
The cost of health care in the United States has been increasing, forcing the healthcare system to implement mechanisms and programs to reduce it while maintaining or improving the quality of care provided to patients. Generating evidence to support the efficacy of cost-cutting mechanisms is critical for health care providers (Mateo & Foreman, 2013). They should ensure that any plan to reduce cost is supported by evidence of quality improvement to prevent detrimental effects on individuals and hospitals. EBP is necessary for this area to avert the potential of reducing the cost and jeopardizing the quality and safety of care.
Health care providers are the backbone of an effective healthcare system. Therefore, leaders should improve the work-life of healthcare providers through such means as implementing workplace health and wellness as well as training programs (Black et al., 2015). However, the implementation of such programs should be based on knowledge from research to investigate details that might prove useful and those that might affect quality. Organizational leaders and care providers should conduct concerted efforts to generate adequate evidence to support the design and implementation of such programs and improve the working conditions of the medical workforce.
Evidence-based practice is necessary to improve health outcomes at the individual and community levels. Therefore, nurses and other care providers should engage in concerted efforts to generate reliable evidence to back up all decisions they make. EBP is necessary to increase the available knowledge to improve care from the four perspectives, including patient experience, population health, costs, and work-life of healthcare providers. Overall, organizational leaders should develop the culture of clinical inquiry at all levels of care delivery.