Question

In your own words, describe the DIKW hierarchy.

1. What is the difference between data and information? Give an example.

2. What is the difference between information and knowledge? Give an example.

3. What is the difference between knowledge and wisdom? Give an example.

How do you see the DIKW hierarchy influencing public health? How is health informatics involved in this process?

Answer 1

The DIKW hierarchy is an illustration of how knowledge can be organized. It is a significant step in the knowledge management process.

The DIKW hierarchy defines how data grows into information, knowledge, and wisdom. Let’s look at the definition of the DIKW hierarchy:

• D for Data
• I for Information
• K for Knowledge
• W for Wisdom

The DIKW process of converting data into wisdom can be seen from two distinct angles: context and understanding.

1.) Data are the facts of the world whereas we apprehend data in information, then communicate it about so that different people can access it at different times. The photograph is some information but what something looks like in it is data. The information can be lost, but when stored in hard drive, but the data in it can't.

Another ex: The no. 50 is data but 50% eat junk food every day is information.

2) Information is much more refined data that can be analyzed while knowledge happens when user experience and by applying insight is applied to data and information. Information is a flow of messages while knowledge is created by the flow of information. Knowledge alone can't be stored but information can. For e.g. - My mental map of how Switzerland looks like is within me and is my knowledge, but storing its map on my computer and analyzing is the information.

3) Wisdom is the top level reached and the knowledge gathered earlier is applied and implemented here. E.g. Wisdom is that 95% of the SMS service users use it for short communication when they do not prefer to wait for a reply from the other party. But knowledge is understanding of SMS and skill of how to type it.

This figure or hierarchy in a healthcare context represents the connection of independence and understanding flow from the first step, Data, to the last step, Wisdom. Data of patients and systems is processed, and relationships are revealed and examined to reach information about health conditions. As mentioned, this step acknowledges the What, Where, When and Who problems. Then, information is concocted to find understanding patterns like previous illness history, medications etc, and this leads to accumulating knowledge about their medical life and subsequently answering the How question of a suitable treatment. And finally, policies are determined and Why question is clarified in the last stage of the DIKW hierarchy about the disease.