Information Mastery: Applying EBM Principles at the Point-of-Care

The Information Mastery process is guided by the steps of the 5A Framework:

1. ASSESSING the patient or population
2. ASKING a focused clinical question
3. ACQUIRING the information needed efficiently
4. APPRAISING it for relevance and validity
5. APPLYING it back to the patient or population

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Information Mastery will vary from the pure 5A Framework at Step 4 by emphasizing the use of pre-screened and validated information sources whenever possible.

There are now products that have done the critical appraisal piece for you, plus assigned a strength of evidence rating to it.  This can help the busy practitioner avoid the time it takes to do critical appraisal for individual articles real-time to inform patient care.

This is not meant to imply that clinicians do not need to have a solid understanding of the principles behind critical appraisal - they do.  Whether preparing for a Journal Club presentation, writing an article, and/or making decisions on literature that has not yet been validated by others, there will be times when you will apply the "A" for "Appraisal".

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