ABSTRACT
This chapter places the evidence, information and knowledge-sharing continuum within the messy context of complex systems (CSs) and promotes the use of systems thinking in EI&K contexts to improve learning and patient safety improvement. It introduces major concepts of the systems thinking framework and explains how healthcare is a complex system. The chapter discusses the transitory nature of information and how knowledge shifts from a static to a dynamic state. It also presents two models that demonstrate how evidence, information, and knowledge have flow. Cynefin is not a category-making framework, but rather a structure where the data precedes the sensemaking and pattern recognition. Information and knowledge are constantly being discovered and produced leading to a false sense of best evidence or end product, at best a temporary mental model. A rigid model of EI&K often lacks the required flexibility for patients and medical professionals to make the best and safest decisions.
