Work

Evidence-Based Medicine and Hospital Reform: Tracing Origins Back to Florence Nightingale

Year: 2009

Type: article

Abstract: The use of reliable evidence to evaluate health care interventions has gained strong support within the medical community and in the field of plastic surgery in particular. Evidence-based medicine aims to improve health care and reduce costs through the use of sound clinical evidence in evaluating treatments, procedures, and outcomes. The field is hardly new, however, and most trace its origins back to the work of Cochrane in the 1970s and Sackett in the 1990s. Though she wouldn't know it, Florence Nightingale was applying the concepts of evidence-based reform to the medical profession more than a century before. She used medical statistics to reveal the nature of infection in hospitals and on the battlefield. Moreover, Nightingale marshaled data and evidence to establish guidelines for health care reform. Tracing the origins of evidence-based medicine back to Nightingale underscores how critical this movement is to improving the quality and effectiveness of patient care today.

Source: Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery

DOI: 10.1097/prs.0b013e3181c2bb89

Authors: Maya Aravind, Kevin C. Chung

Institutions: University of Michigan, Michigan Medicine

Language: English

Topic: Medical History and Innovations

Subfield: History

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funders: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases