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Evidence-Based Practice and the Quadruple Aim in Healthcare

Evidence-Based Practice and the Quadruple Aim in Healthcare

Health organizations have conventionally aimed at enhancing populations’ health, patient experience, and lowering costs, all the while termed the Triple Aim. In recent years, the model has been supplemented with a fourth metric: enhancing healthcare workers’ work lives. The expanded new focus is termed the Quadruple Aim: Evidence-Based Practice and the Quadruple Aim in Healthcare.

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is among the methods utilized to attain all aspects of the Quadruple Aim by making clinical decisions based on the highest quality evidence available (Melnyk & Fineout-Overholt, 2022). In this discussion, we will discuss how EBP impacts the four quadrants of the Quadruple Aim: patient experience, population health, costs, and the life of healthcare workers.

Patient Experience

Patient experience is one of the important quality domains of healthcare, such as communication, patient engagement in decision-making, and general satisfaction. EBP facilitates patient experience because care is founded on current and pertinent research. When clinicians utilize evidence in guiding clinical decision-making, patients receive tested-and-proven treatment, thereby enhancing trust and satisfaction (Kwame & Petrucka, 2021).

In addition, EBP promotes individualized care. If the evidence favors certain communication strategies or pain control strategies, the strategies maximize the patient’s experience. If patients are aware of evidence-based care possibilities and involved in decision-making, patients feel empowered and participatory. This equals greater satisfaction and better experience.

Population Health

Outcomes across populations, with a focus on outcome inequities, constitute population health. EBP enhances population health as it promotes preventive services and effective management of chronic disease (Raheem, 2023). Evidence-based treatments for chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease decrease the burden of illness and enhance the health outcomes for whole populations.

EBP also eliminates health disparities as it supplies the most effective treatments and preventive interventions to vulnerable populations. For instance, evidence-based maternal or mental health programs enhance outcomes among disadvantaged populations. EBP also strengthens public health programs like smoking cessation or immunization programs so that they are evidence-based and specific for optimal outcomes.

Lowering Healthcare Expenses

Decreasing healthcare expenditure is a priority, and EBP is an essential instrument for assisting in the fight against it. EBP promotes cost-saving therapies, minimizing unnecessary procedures, testing, and medications that do not enhance patient outcomes. For instance, evidence-based care protocols for chronic diseases can decrease hospitalization and emergency room visits, lowering healthcare expenditure.

Additionally, EBP is preventive care, which is cost-saving in the long term. The utilization of prevention measures that are supported by evidence, i.e., screening for cancer, immunizations, and lifestyle modification, decreases high-cost, preventable illness (Duff et al., 2021). EBP also enhances quality care, resulting in improved outcomes in terms of patients, lowered complications, and shorter lengths of stay, all of which minimize costs by maximizing utilization.

Work-Life of Healthcare Professionals

The work life of the healthcare providers is one of the elements of the Quadruple Aim that needs to be addressed. EBP enhances the operational quality of the work life of the health care providers by reducing stress and ambiguity when making clinical decisions. Through its utilization, healthcare providers are able to make decisions with efficiency and confidence, hence increasing job satisfaction. EBP also offers an ideal guideline for practice; it boosts providers’ ability to perform their expected roles.

In addition, knowledge enhancement and professional development are best practiced in accordance with EBP. It is suggested that the providers who get to work with the latest evidence will have more support and be motivated to work. It also, for that matter, facilitates cooperation within the healthcare teams, thus improving communications and teamwork and making the working environment better (Arnetz et al., 2020). EBP contributes to enhancing work life by reducing the cognitive load required, and encouraging the use of evidence to enhance the practice while addressing burnout among healthcare professionals.

Conclusion

Altogether, Evidence-Based Practice is one of the tools that can support the achievement of the Quadruple Aim in the future. EBP helps improve the experience of patients, the health of the population, and the conditions of the providers’ work, and it decreases the costs of clinical decisions. Organizational healthcare management that cares about EBP delivery is ready to face challenges in the achievement of the Quadruple Aim and enhancement of quality care. EBP is crucial in changing the face of healthcare by adopting principle-based practices that offer the best value for patients as well as caretakers in the long run.

References

Arnetz, B. B., Goetz, C. M., Arnetz, J. E., Sudan, S., vanSchagen, J., Piersma, K., & Reyelts, F. (2020). Enhancing healthcare efficiency to achieve the quadruple aim: An exploratory study. BMC Research Notes, 13(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-020-05199-8

Duff, J., Cullen, L., Hanrahan, K., & Steelman, V. (2021). Determinants of an evidence-based practice environment: an interpretive description. Implementation Science Communications, 1(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s43058-020-00070-0

Kwame, A., & Petrucka, P. (2021). A literature-based study of patient-centered care and communication in nurse-patient interactions: Barriers, facilitators, and the way forward. BMC Nursing, 20(158), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-021-00684-2

Melnyk, B. M., & Fineout-Overholt, E. (2022). Evidence-Based Practice in Nursing & Healthcare: A Guide to Best Practice. In Google Books. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. https://books.google.com/books/about/Evidence_Based_Practice_in_Nursing_Healt.html?id=EPaBEAAAQBAJ

Raheem, Y. A. (2023). Unveiling the significance and challenges of integrating prevention levels in healthcare practice. Journal of Primary Care & Community Health, 14(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1177/21501319231186500

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Question

Healthcare organizations continually seek to optimize healthcare performance. For years, this approach was a three-pronged one known as the Triple Aim, with efforts focused on improved population health, enhanced patient experience, and lower healthcare costs.

More recently, this approach has evolved to a Quadruple Aim by including a focus on improving the work life of healthcare providers. Each of these measures are impacted by decisions made at the organizational level, and organizations have increasingly turned to EBP to inform and justify these decisions.

Resources

Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity.
Click the weekly resources link to access the resources.

WEEKLY RESOURCES

To Prepare:

  • Read the articles by Sikka, Morath, & Leape (2015); Crabtree, Brennan, Davis, & Coyle (2016); and Kim et al. (2016) provided in the Resources.
  • Reflect on how EBP might impact (or not impact) the Quadruple Aim in healthcare.
  • Consider the impact that EBP may have on factors impacting these quadruple aim elements, such as preventable medical errors or healthcare delivery.

    Evidence-Based Practice and the Quadruple Aim in Healthcare

    Evidence-Based Practice and the Quadruple Aim in Healthcare

To Complete:

Write a brief analysis (no longer than 2 pages) of the connection between EBP and the Quadruple Aim.

Your analysis should address how EBP might (or might not) help reach the Quadruple Aim, including each of the four measures of:

  • Patient experience
  • Population health
  • Costs
  • Work life of healthcare providers

Readings: