If I am a practitioner do I want evidence that a treatment has been
effective with previous patients or do I want evidence that a treatment is
effective or was effective with a current patient?
If you have a new patient in front of you, how do you know what will be effective with this current patient? What do you base your decision making and treatment planning on? You can't say you have evidence that a treatment is effective with a current patient if you haven't treated that patient yet. So how do you decide what will be effective? That is where evidence based practice comes in - basing treatment choices on evidence of what has been demonstrated to have worked in the past. This does not negate the need for constant assessment of this particular patient's response to treatment. This ongoing assessment of patient response is collecting new evidence, which can then be used to refine treatment for this patient, as well as with future patients. There is no one right answer or approach to treatment - if there were, everyone would do exactly the same thing.
I get the impression from the way you phrased the question, that you have a problem with evidence based practice. Is that true, or am I misunderstanding your post?
Ann
