Educating health professionals in evidence-based practice in 2026

Early formulations of evidence-based medicine and healthcare emphasised the ability of health professionals to formulate questions, search for and critically appraise individual studies to inform their practice. As the field matured, systematic evidence syntheses increasingly became the preferred basis for decisions about care.1 In this context, health professionals seeking current evidence or guidance now rarely start with primary research studies.2 In 2026, users are more likely to begin with preappraised sources (eg, clinical practice guidelines and point-of-care evidence summaries) and increasingly, information retrieved from generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools.