Evidence-based care

The delivery of safe, high-quality health care must be underpinned by up-to-date evidence-based practice, taking into consideration clinical judgement, the patient’s needs and their preferences for health care.^[i]

Your healthcare service has an important role in facilitating the use of evidence-based care in practice. This means giving healthcare providers ready access to, and supporting their use of, best-practice guidelines, available evidence, relevant clinical care standards developed by the Commission and decision support tools4 relevant to their clinical practice. These resources may be profession specific, or multidisciplinary, for example, integrated clinical pathways. They may be national or international best-practice guidelines, or locally adapted guidelines. 

• Which best-practice guidelines, clinical care standards developed by the Commission and decision support tools are available to healthcare providers in your service? 
• How are your healthcare providers supported to use best-practice guidelines, clinical care standards and decision support tools in the delivery of health care?

• Provide healthcare providers with access to best-practice guidelines and available evidence, clinical care standards developed by the Commission and decision support tools relevant to their clinical practice. 
• Support healthcare providers to use relevant best-practice guidelines, available evidence and clinical care standards developed by the Commission. 
• Support healthcare providers to use decision support tools relevant to their clinical practice in their delivery of health care to patients. 
• Support healthcare providers to participate in continuing professional development activities, and facilitate a culture of peer sharing and learning from patient case studies within the healthcare service (where possible).

The type and comprehensiveness of evidence used is dependent on each healthcare service context, but could include:

• Evidence of the best-practice guidelines, clinical care standards developed by the Commission and decision support tools that are available to healthcare providers
• Description of how healthcare providers access and use best-practice guidelines, pathways, decision support tools and clinical care standards that reflect best available evidence 
• Training documents (for example, continuing professional development records) relating to clinical updates.

Commission resource

• Clinical Care Standards – contain a small number of quality statements that describe the care patients should be offered by healthcare providers and healthcare services for a specific clinical condition or defined clinical pathway in line with current best evidence. 

Other resources

• Primary Health Network: HealthPathways – most Primary Health Networks (PHNs) provide access to HealthPathways, an online health information portal for healthcare providers to be used at the point of care. It provides localised information on how to assess and manage medical conditions and how to refer patients to local specialists and services in the most timely manner.[i]
• Queensland Health: Primary Clinical Care Manual – provides a clinical reference for health professionals working in rural, remote and isolated healthcare settings.
• Therapeutic guidelines: a leading source of independent, evidence-based, practical treatment advice to assist practitioners with decision-making at the point of care.