Model integrates evidence-based practice with quality improvement

The American Journal of Nursing’s May issue features a conceptual model designed to guide evidence-based practice-quality-improvement initiatives. The Mountain Model merges EBP and QI principles into a unified framework for nursing and other disciplines to better disseminate and sustain EBPQI projects across health care settings. The authors contend the nursing field needs a unified framework because EBP lacks the sustainability component of QI, and QI prioritizes internal evidence and excludes external research evidence. The authors hypothesize the model could “strengthen practice change initiatives, increase the research-practice connection, address practice gaps and decrease the time it takes for research findings to be adopted into practice.” They encourage researchers to test the model’s usefulness.