Module 4, Question 1 (part two)

Module 4, Question 1 (part two):

It is difficult to not use past nursing knowledge and experience when making decisions. It is easy to see how using this can create an area of heuristis and biases that may affect the judgments made. According to Tversky & Kahneman (1974) "heuristics are quite useful, but sometimes they lead to severe and systematic errors". I believe that taking into accountability that there are biases in using past experience and knowledge in making decisions, the clinician will be better able to balance out the issue of biases. It is imperative that the clinician, no matter how experienced, must realize that there are bound to be area that are unfamiliar to them and past experience alone will not be enough to make a sound judgement. We must realize as practitioners that we do not have all of the answers in our current knowledge base and we must be prepared to look at EBP and use CDSSs to help us make decisions. Past knowledge and experience gives a place to start when making clinical judgements, but it is not the final step.