The term "evidence-based"
The term "evidence-based" gets used a lot in healthcare. And I can appreciate it, certainly, as a patient. I like to think that the interventions that might be applied to me in the course of my own healthcare are rooted in practice and evaluated by experienced practitioners.
But, I wonder, are the terms "evidence-based" and "innovative" mutually exclusive? How do you get from innovative to evidence-based? I can see it from a knowledge management perspective - cycling from ideas in practice to refinement to publishing to evaluation - but I think sometimes the term "evidence-based" gets applied incorrectly in the association setting. Do healthcare associations, not healthcare practitioners, get sucked into the need to make sure their efforts are evidence-based, because that is what their members do?
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Comments
I don't think the terms are incompatible at all. Drucker defined innovation along the lines of "any change that yields enhanced value or an improved change in performance."
So that naturally could/should lead someone to ask "what evidence do we have that demonstrates enhanced value or improved performance?"
And I suppose for some, simply doing something differently might be seen as sufficient evidence of innovation.
Posted by: Jeffrey Cufaude | March 30, 2009 7:10 PM
I believe that the "evidence" one uses to justify considering and implementing what will be defined as an innovation can include reliable testing results, research that can be used to predict behavior within your own audience, and extrapolation of case studies with other analogous constituencies & organizations. Then again, I'm a bit biased. At least we're not at a level where we need clinical trial quality data to know we can proceed with a new approach. :O)
Posted by: Kevin Whorton | April 1, 2009 6:38 AM