Introduction

The five steps of evidence-based medicine are to formulate an answerable question, gather the evidence, appraise the evidence, implement the evidence, and evaluate the process. A Level 1 study can be a randomized controlled trial or a meta-analysis of randomized trials with homogeneous results. The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons recommendations in clinical practice guidelines recommend two or more high-quality studies. Look out for a separate podcast episode about clinical design trials.