Evidence Based Medicine

What It Is
In recent years, the medical community has accepted evidence-based medicine (EBM) as the judicious use of prevailing facts to make decisions about the care of individual patients. The goal is to improve healthcare outcomes and eliminate overspending on unnecessary diagnostics and treatment options. It is primarily based on five well-defined steps: asking focused questions, finding the evidence, appraising critically, determining a course of action and evaluating performance.

EBM requires spending more time with the patient for education, managing expectations and monitoring care. However, the ROI shows that it is time well spent by reducing the risks of heart disease, amputations or other related effects of chronic diseases. When there is less variation in diagnosis, the treatment improves patient safety.

The Premise Health Difference
Premise Health follows 150 EBM guidelines in an effort to improve the quality of its care. Clients choose Premise Health because our adherence to EBM guidelines improves compliance.

In Practice
In a selected case study, Premise Health managed to increase the EBM compliance rate of health center users for acute and chronic conditions. When managing acute conditions, such as bronchitis and low back pain, health center users were on average 16% more compliant than non-users over a three year period. For chronic conditions, such as diabetes, asthma and elevated cholesterol, health center users were on average 23% more compliant than non-users over a three year period.