Knowledge Management in Healthcare - Assignment Example

Can Knowledge Management Work in Healthcare Wendy Gann February 26, 2009 AL450 Knowledge Management Intoduction Healthcare is a vastly growing and fast evolving discipline, continuously creating, utilizing and mobilizing explicit knowledge traffic. As it develops, its attributes and operating system become more complex-posing both a trajectory to advanced medical processes, and at the same time, challenges in managing and controlling the knowledge assets it produces, all for making it more accessible and relevant to its practitioners and customers. Knowledge Management definitely makes the sense out of healthcare. Since healthcare comprises 6% - 12% of the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries' GDP, and that since expectations on the development of specialized and more efficient healthcare strategies have always been increasing from the 1950s (Sharma, Wickramasinghe, Gupta, 2005), it cannot be foregone that efficient and effective acquisition and application of Knowledge Management systems in healthcare would boost the people's general wellness and standard of living, and hasten healthcare's economic and social benefits. This paper would expound on the need for and how Knowledge Management is adopted in healthcare, what problems does it address, what are the considerations to maximize its total benefits, what factors may hinder it from being an effective tool in effecting development in the field of healthcare and what are the importance of transferring the explicit knowledge.. Discussion "Healthcare organizations are facing many challenges in the 21st Century due to changes taking place in global healthcare systems. Spiraling costs, financial constraints, increased emphasis on accountability and transparency, changes in education, growing complexities of biomedical research, new partnerships in healthcare and great advances in IT suggest that a predominant paradigm shift is occurring. This shift is necessitating a focus on interaction, collaboration and increased sharing of information and knowledge which is in turn leading healthcare organizations to embrace the techniques of Knowledge Management in order to create and sustain optimal healthcare." (Sharma et al., 2005) Indeed healthcare plays by the rules of the economy and the society too, it lends itself vulnerable to the limitations of the body administering it. As acquiring information does not come without a cost, readily available yet reliable information are sought for, thus the role of Knowledge Management to regulate and pass on information. (Tandon, Angrish, Anand, 2006) Knowledge Management, though having relative definitions sums up the process of creating, controlling, channeling and transferring knowledge assets to address competitive advantage and optimal performance. (Morgan, Doyle, Albers, 2005) In healthcare, most especially in nursing care, knowledge continuity is posed as an organizational challenge. In the US, there is a high turnover rate among hospital staff-already amounting to 20% (Morgan et al., 2005). This dynamics breaks the links of transferring knowledge from old to new employees leading to poor acquisition or transfer of valuable knowledge assets. In basic terms, knowledge is shared through a "traditional scholastic medical education" through "textbook based" learning, and acquiring lessons through experience and mentorship. Although this, in the beginning, could let the workers harness best business practices, it could also mean lack of diversification in knowledge unless branching out to different hospital units is initiated. "There are a number of organizational benefits to KCM [Knowledge Continuity Management] such as decreasing job turnover costs, increasing organizational effectiveness, improving training for new employees, facilitation of organizational learning, speeding the maximal productivity of new employees, and improving the decision making and decreasing the process errors of new employees." (Morgan et al., 2005) Knowledge sharing requires organizations to learn from their own experiences and that of others since it is imperative to continuously learn and adopt different practices and incorporate developmental goals to their activities to address optimal care for patients. Utilizing technology and own experiences as basis of knowledge to improve on increases the learning and ingenuity in different undertakings. (Knowledge networks and its role in creating organizational knowledge, 2004) "One highly effective and easily overlooked method of knowledge sharing within healthcare occurs at the intersection of hospitals and the for profit industries that supply them with materials and equipment... The for profit industry, not surprisingly, is responsible for many of the medical innovations." (Kwon, Sasaki, Slater,Stanton, 2005) Now, what factors may hinder it Knowledge Management to be an effective tool in providing healthcare Knowledge Management has both technical and non-technical aspects according to Tandon, Angrish and Anand (2001). Technical aspects consist of the program wherein operators could input their knowledge through an understandable interface, while non-technical aspects are composed of the operator, the interpreter and practitioner of the knowledge. The knowledge provided, in the non-technical sense, would depend on the rationale and education of the interpreter. Lack of education may hinder the interpreter to apply and extort the benefits of the knowledge assets. "Much of the medical knowledge is inaccessible without the years of education." (Kwon et al., 2005) To maximize the relevance and outcome of applying Knowledge Management, some of the considerations that must be noted are (1) "what is knowledge in the context of the organization" (2) if the "strategic objectives" are parallel to the activities wherein Knowledge Management is applied and (3) the "things required to facilitate learning, innovation and sharing" to achieve the aforementioned activities (Sharma et al., 2005). Knowledge in the context of the organization needs evaluation in the knowledge assets owned by the company-be it tacit or explicit knowledge-that would determine the future knowledge needs of the organization to address its strategic objectives. Strategic objectives are like roadmaps to achieving an organization's goals. Here, the goal is projected, evaluated and knowledge requirement is "calculated" so it could be supplied along the process of achieving the objectives. Alongside the goal is the push to create, manage and transfer the knowledge of the organization, aided by the members of the organization. Another helpful factor to consider is how the network for sharing knowledge is created. To focus on achieving the facilitation of Knowledge Management in an aspect that is considered vital and "specialized" in an organization's strategic objectives, a CoP or Community of Practice is created to convene a group of people to work on a certain area of interest, and to focus on producing knowledge and knowledge networks to make knowledge transfer more efficient.(Knowledge networks and its role in creating organizational knowledge, 2004) Reflection It always goes back to the idea that knowledge, as part of building organizations and opting for its development, needs to evolve, to accumulate and to be efficiently managed to suffice the organization's need for relevant, specific knowledge. Effective Knowledge Management would save time, space and resources in the pursuit of knowledge, especially in fast-evolving and multifaceted disciplines like healthcare. Although Knowledge Management poses a great opportunity in improving the level of service healthcare institutions could provide, it would still be up to the users, to the vectors of knowledge on how to utilize or modify their decisions, incorporating the available knowledge provided by the system into their decision-making process. Summary In every organization, the need for Knowledge Management is imperative to ensure the maintenance and sustainability of special knowledge that cannot be available by any other means. Knowledge that is passed on from old to new employees and are recorded on some technical aspect of knowledge sharing must be capitalized upon and be treated as an asset. This knowledge could be transferred effectively through identifying the need for knowledge, the organization's strategic objectives and the necessary actions to make them happen. Specialization in producing knowledge could also lead to an increase in comparative advantage. Lastly, Knowledge Management would hardly make sense if not incorporated in the decision-making process in the actual practice of healthcare. Proliferation of knowledge and knowledge transfer would depend on the network on which it was built and how the participants work about it. Works Cited Sharma S., Wickramasinghe N., Gupta J., (2005). Knowledge Management in Healthcare.. [Online]. Available:http://66.218.69.11/search/cacheei=UTF8&p=knowledge+ management+in+healthcare&fr=yfp-t-501&fp_ip=PH&u=www.ideagroup.com/ downloads/excerpts/01Wickramasinghe.pdf&w=knowledge+management+manager+healthcare+%22health+care%22&d=DIxODw-YSOA_&icp=1&.intl=us Tandon BB., Angrish A.K., Anand S.K., (2006). Knowledge Management in Managed Healthcare. [Online]. Available: http://www.expresshealthcaremgmt.com/200606/ management01.shtml Morgan L., Doyle M., Albers J., (2005). Knowledge Continuity Management In Healthcare. [Online] Available: http://www.tlainc.com/articl84.htm Kwon H.J., Sasaki T., Slater H.,Stanton M., (2005). Managing Knowledge in Healthcare Industry. [Online]. Available: http://collopy.case.edu:16080/MBAC423F05/projects/ KnowledgeHealthcare.doc Knowledge networks and its role in creating organizonal knowledge (2004). [Online]. Available: http://www.allkm.com/cop/k-networks.php Read More