Evidence-Based Practice in Informatics
Information technology is changing the health care sector by bringing in new devices, tools, and software. The change has mostly impacted the nurses, a situation that has led to the health care information technology to be known as nursing informatics (Ronquillo et al., 2016). Nursing informatics is being put into practice as a framework that assists in applying and organizing data, information, knowledge, and wisdom (DIKW) into the healthcare sector. The DIKW frameworks provide a view of how nurses use facts in providing care and making decisions. The framework offers knowledge on how nursing informatics impacts the many stages of evidence-centered practice, understanding, and decision making.
In the framework, data is at the lowest level. Data looks at the discrete sets of details about a particular condition or patient. Thus, it can be an isolated land of facts an individual would view and objectively identify (Nelson, 2018). The next stage above data is information. Information comes in after organizing and processing the data into more manageable and meaningful structures by interpreting the data. At this level, nurses can utilize the help of information systems like electronic health records to compile and get meaning in the data.
Information is followed by knowledge. Knowledge comes in after the information has been synchronized, and relationships and interconnections are identified. Knowledge helps to get abnormalities and patterns form a different set of information (Nelson, 2018). Decision support systems highly come in handy at this level. Lastly, Wisdom comes in as the last level of the framework. Wisdom invokes the application of knowledge to solve clinical problems and vital patient health problems. It also looks at the introduction of ethics, compassion, and quality of life in healthcare and patient issues (McBride & Tietze, 2019).
There are several ways in which the DIKW framework works in a health care setting. For instance, let’s look at a 45 years old man of average height who is a bit overweight. If the patient had a recent blood test that showed that he had slightly high cholesterol and had impaired glucose tolerance, the details would act as facts concerning him. This is perceived to be their data. Next, if a nurse was to discuss the blood test result with the individual and asked them to come again for another checkup, wherein the second check, they conducted another blood test, and the results come out just like the first, the details world represents information.
If the nurse used the information, compared it with the individual’s electronic health records, and found out that the person’s family has a diabetics history. All the details from data and information from blood tests would enable the nurse to determine that the patient has type 2 diabetics. Thus, the diagnosis could be considered as knowledge.
The nurses would apply wisdom to offer the most appropriate way of addressing diabetes issues from knowledge. The nurse can advise on lifestyle change for the patients. If the patient’s condition does not improve after a few months, the nurse would recommend appropriate treatment and medication options.
In conclusion, the samples show how to use the DIKW framework in the healthcare sector. It proves that data and information play a huge role when it comes to the nurse’s life in their day to day activities.
References
McBride, S., & Tietze, M. (2019). Nursing informatics for the advanced practice nurse: Patient safety, quality, outcomes, and interprofessional (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Springer Publishing.Chapter 3, “Scientific and Theoretical Foundations for Driving Improvement” (pp. 40–73)
Nelson, R. (2018). Informatics: Evolution of the Nelson Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom Model: Part 1. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 23(3).
Ronquillo, C. M., Currie, L. M., & Rodney, P. (2016). The evolution of data-information-knowledge-wisdom in nursing informatics. Advances in Nursing Science, 39(1)