title: Best practice: what it is and what it is not.
abstract: This paper offers a poststructural critique of the concept of best practice and suggests that those practising best practice seek to reinforce modernist notions of health care and health-care delivery. Modernist notions limit possibilities for health-care workers, including nurses, as well as limiting the care delivered to clients. In turn, these mask various outcomes for clients and health care workers. This paper explores the concept of best practice and the discourse on which it is based and offers an alternative perspective on which high quality health-care services can be developed.
authors.affiliation: University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia. colleen.smith@unisa.edu.au
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Sutton
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001294:Attitude to Health; D001315:Australia; D019985:Benchmarking / Q000379:methods* / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D010686:Philosophy, Medical; D012962:Sociology, Medical; D013850:Thinking