No better time. The effects of the recession make evidence-based management all the more compelling for health care leaders.

Denise Rousseau of the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University defines evidence-based management as “a paradigm for making decisions that integrates the best available research evidence with decisionmaker expertise and client/customer preferences to guide practice toward more desirable results.”1 Incorporating research evidence in decision making helps managers avoid such well known traps as basing important operational and strategic decisions on outdated historical practice, current fears or fads or personal preferences. Also, by assessing the implications of findings from the best available studies, manBY CONNIE EVASHWICK, SC.D. AND THOMAS RUNDALL, PH.D.