Information, education and health care work: Beyond evidence, collective intelligence

Abstract

Information has been considered a key input for the management, teaching and coordination of care practices and for public (or collective) health, and it is expected to work as a true tool to guide decision-making and the production of valid knowledge. In the present essay, we question the role of information in the management and teaching of participatory management concepts and critical-participatory teaching-learning processes. Considering concepts from the collective health field, information science and Brazil’s national information policy, we analyze the challenge of an evaluation culture to strengthen management systems, particularly with respect to the development of skills among health care workers. Without disregarding the technical nature of information processing, we propose a shift in the concept of information from a tool to guide decision-making and the production of valid knowledge to a tool used to mobilize the development of capacity of local institutions. The concept of the data/collective information-intelligence cycle, which was developed in previous research, points to the analytical power of soft technologies and approaches to professional education, following a theoretical construct that has already been proposed in the National Policy on Health Information and Computing. This concept highlights the challenge for health information to be more than an input for learning in everyday management, care and training.