Innovation and Knowledge Management in Healthcare - Literature review Example

Innovation And Knowledge Management In Healthcare Insert Insert INNOVATION AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN HEALTHCARE INTRODUCTION The healthcare sector faces an era with unprecedented changes. The fact that institutions have their strategy for working throughout these challenges and working towards their mission, innovation and knowledge management in the healthcare play an important role. Todays environment is increasingly become complex, and therefore it is critical that organizations manage their operations and strategies accordingly. knowledge management has become an important part for businesses in this competitive environment (Davenport, Prusak, & Wilson, 2003). Consistent and systematic innovation and knowledge management practices can help the healthcare organizations to manage and realize their goals according to the changes environment (Pink, Deber, Lavoie, and Aserlind, 1991). INNOVATION, KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY In healthcare industry, innovation and knowledge management has led to improvements in the industry. As in the industry, healthcare organizations and leaders seek to find the delivery of health care in clinical situations, and this has lead to improvements in the industry (Atun, and Sheridan, 2007). When healthcare practitioners are unable to consult or find a solution, then they must learn to manage knowledge effectively and ready for innovation to find the right solution (Berkowitz, and McCarthy, 2013). Through innovations and knowledge management, inventions like Computer Aided Treatment has made health care operations more effective. These innvoations have enabled many patients to get faster assistance in health care industry (Beenstock et al., 2006). It has been as innovations like these have allowed patients to be present in front of the a screen like questions appears on the display and the patient is answering them using a mouse. It has changed the need of many patients that would need to see a doctor. This invention in healthcare has led to the practical problem-solving in the hospital environment. It is also supported by Berry, and Mirabito, (2010) as according to this isan effective problem-solving technique in health care industry. It is dependent on the situation of healthcare practitioners that immediate access to fresh and fast information can lead to more effective solutions. Because of thos invention, the information patient files on the screen and provides enough knowledge to the doctor. The health care organizations face many problems due to inadequate innovation and knowledge management (Bland et al., 2009). Basic statistics shows that the average physicians spend about 25 percent of their time in managing the information. It is also found that adverse drugs reactions result in more than 770,000 injuries and deaths each year. The key to success of clinical health care sector in 21st century was designed to integrate technology into human-based clinical decision-making processes to meet information needs successfully that are growing at an exponential rate. Bradley (2014) stated that the reason for this is because knowledge management is a multi-disciplinary paradigm that often uses technology to support acquisition, generation, and transferring information in the context of particular organizational processes. Knowledge used in health care is a tacit and is often stored in the minds of healthcare professionals (Burns, 2005). Moreover, the ultimate objective of the knowledge management is to transform that tacit knowledge to allow effective dissemination. By so doing, healthcare institutions are free to disseminate the acquired knowledge in a manner that allows its availability to other healthcare stakeholders for such areas as preventative and operate medical diagnosis and to paramount treatment (Quinn, 1996). Through inventions and innovation, new concepts like online procedures have been introduced. These innovations will solve some of the difficult problems and will help many who are not able to get the clinical procedures (De Lacy et al., 2014). Although some of the information posted on the internet about the healthcare may not be accurate or too much helpful without medical attention in the hospitals. Nevertheless, some preventive measures about certain diseases in the web may be of great help to many people as preventive is more essential than the cure (Kodama, 2013). In the future of medical management and decision studies knowledge about the health care, it is imperative and can help someone in decision making but due to the changes and the emergence of new diseases more innovations and knowledge management are required in the field of the health care (Endsley, 2010). Various changes in health care have assisted a lot in terms of enhancing the level of prevention and cure of disease. Inventions such as test-tube babies and others have ensured that women who are unable to raise the inborn in their wombs are able to get babies. The invention of x-rays and gamma rays have also provided dislocations, and injuries can be easily treated. Moreover, inventions about the ARVS have reduced many pains and diseases by those who are HIV positive. These inventions and other innovations have enhanced and enabled improvements and preventive measures in healthcare. It is evident that various mentioned innovations in healthcare have assisted a great deal in knowledge management, however still there are more changes to be made in order to ensure better healthcare to everyone (Marcotte, 2014). Moreover, advancement in knowledge management will play an integral part in enhancing the innovation and with coming up with more inventions (Dillon, McDonald, and Jonus, 2012). Moreover, from the statistics, it is evident that although much has been done but still more advanced and better methods to cure various problems related to the healthcare are required. These are required as the key to success of healthcare in this 21st century is to achieve an efficient integration of innovation in technology and knowledge management (Collinge, 2009). It is the only the safe way to curb many challenges impacting the health care industry nowadays. CULTURAL BARRIERS AND ITS IMPACT ON KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND INNOVATIVE Hospitals are made up of different people belonging to various departments, and each organization is lead by different types of leaders with different leadership styles. Each of these individual units is highly specialized. The hospital is also made up of many people from different background settings, varied cultures, educational and social settings. In general, a hospital is a complex entity with people from different culture and thus, their style of work and decision making is different (García-Fontes, 2011). To survive in modern and digital society, societies have to be continuously innovative. According to Govindarajan and Trimble (2005), organizations must be innovative in areas pertaining to the skills and abilities of employees, customer service and the intelligence levels in these groups. Davenport, Prusak, & Wilson, (2003) state that knowledge is a mix of framed cognizant and aligning information according to the context. Expertise in this domain provides an enabling environment to judge and relate the daily experiences with the information and knowledge in order to change the way people look at things. Knowledge exists in the minds of its users in an organization. It is beside the regular organizations routines, processes, and the general activities (Osborne, and Brown, n.d.). Knowledge management, on the other hand, helps individual organizations to filter the right information in the organization, disseminate and to spread valuable information and experiences of the body that has been archived in its memory (Goulard, and Simpson, 1999). Organizations need to reinvent how knowledge is managed and analyze the performance indicators to ensure that performance is improved. Knowledge influences the performance of any given group and thus, analyzing and managing it is critical (Gryboski, Van Tilburg, and Butterick, 2009). Groups in general need to create value in a way of addressing the diverse opinions put across by the staff in the hospital. Such matters are vital for general management and corporate strategy. Cabrita and Bontis, (2008) analyzed at internal and external factors of a given organization in a span of time and space available. According to them, these factors should be aligned with the laid down strategies and the specific objectives the organization intends to achieve. There are a lot of difficulties experienced when the goals and the stipulated steps to achieving success are quite divergent and do not coincide by all means possible (Pfannstiel, 2011). This complicates the benchmarking and comparisons of various related societies that make confirmation of a selected phenomenon of study difficult. The general levels and procedures of ascertaining the success levels acquired by a particular institution are extremely difficult. They are broad and varied, for example; it includes, but not limited to external factors to the organization, innate factors of the organization and the organization itself as a complete entity (Statham, 1999). This is in accordance to the theory that once said that every single human being has unique characteristics and capabilities that when properly harnessed will be very beneficial to the relating organization. The institution is made up of many personalities whose overall behavior is regulated and shaped by the layout of the organization and how power is distributed in such a body. The divergent and dynamic nature of the organization makes it even more complicated to addressing indicators popping up in the organization in the appropraite manner. It may also lead to a lot of difficulties because of conflicting interests and different mindsets coming into play (Suter et al., 2006). As a result, issues of mismatched and miscalculated approaches to what the organization initially intended to go through are very common. In addition, this leads to increased cases of false indicators. However, the volatility of such an organization has led to the real signs being subsided while the less important ones take root and all the attention especially when weighting is being carried out (Walshe, and Smith, 2011). Of course, these decisions have serious repercussions to such an organization, although it would be too late already for them. The results are the question of the legitimacy of the existence of such organizations in pursuance of its strategies and making sure that nothing takes them away from the intended purpose. Cabrita and Bontis (2008) talked of inexistence of universal agreement on the evaluation of how an organization has fared on. However, it is essential to ascertain the strategies of the organization according to the level of importance and how their effects imply the organization. As a result, proper knowledge on the cause and effects of how to arrive at the results is imperative (Hasselder, Forte, and Horrex, 2009). Competition of various organizations in a particular region is never present without innovation. It has a lot of impact on the development levels and the manner in which progress in such a region is rated. According to Santos-Rodrigues, Figueroa, & Jardon (2011), how the business relates to its immediate surroundings influneces the creation and the diffusion levels of innovation. As the innovation is a management process, systems and apparatus must be controlled in any management. It is, thus, said that innovation is a social intrinsic and a team activity. Sudden innovations have adverse effects on the organization, causing a lot of unnecessary changes to that structure. On the other hand, step by step change is an implication of smaller changes being added to the institution that builds on what already exists. These innovations have profound results (Zipperer, and Amori, 2011). Product innovation is a product or a service whose intention is to benefit the resultant customer of the institution and to come up with new opportunities for the novel item and is centered towards the consumer. Authors like Santos-Rodrigues, Figueroa, & Jardon (2011) look at the concept of innovation and invitation as diverse and unrelated. Whereas creativity is the manner in which people come up with new ideas, innovation does not stop at the level of being creative, as it goes further to transform this into a valuable realization of something economically viable. Innovation can be influenced by the culture and leadership style of the health care organization. If the leaders do not encourage innovation in the organization and do not manage the knowledge and data properly, then it could influence the organizational strategy and organization’s innovation approach. The culture of the organization can also be important in innovational strategy of the organization. Organizations that promote innovation are the ones that achieve success whereas, organizations that do not promote the innovation culture suffer in the long run. For instance, if the hospitals or health care industry do not promote new inventions like X-rays and gamma rays would have not been possible. Similarly other preventive measures for different diseases may have not been introduced. Moreover, ARVS is one of the renowned innovations and if the leaders did not promote such innovations, then the health care industry would not have grown at this pace. Therefore, the role of innovation is imperative and the organizational culture needs to support innovation and ecnoruage knowledge and its proper management. The above concepts seek to advance the existence of cultural barriers at different levels in our hospitals. They do not only remain in the varied individual personalities of the staff and patients in the hospitals, it goes further to cover different departments and the organization strata of that hospital. The level of exposure to the people making decisions for such hospitals also plays a crucial role on classifying the decision taken by such a team as innovative. Reserved and unexposed persons making the final decisions will often not buy new ideas easily as compared to younger and flexible counterparts whose decisions could bring a lot of benefits to the organization. So its quite true that hospitals cultural challenges have been known to affect the relationship that occur between knowledge management and innovative outcomes. List of References Atun, R. and Sheridan, D. (2007). Innovation in the biopharmaceutical industry. Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific. Beenstock, J., Cleary, P., Green, B., Johnstone, F., Jones, S. and Lavan, E. (2006). PCT commissioning: an innovative approach. Br J Healthcare Management, vol. 12, no. 11, pp.334-337. Berkowitz, L. and McCarthy, C. (2013). Innovation with information technologies in healthcare. London: Springer. Berry, L. and Mirabito, A. (2010). Innovative healthcare delivery. Business Horizons, vol. 53, no. 2, pp.157-169. Bland, R., Smith-Robbie, A., Rutherford, K., Kinnell, A., Hall, S. and Andrews, C. (2009). An innovative approach to the development of HCSWs. Br J Healthcare Assistants, vol. 3, no. 10, pp.504-507. Bradley, P. (2014). Innovative harness for children with motor impairment. Br J Healthcare Assistants, vol. 8, no. 4, pp.163-163. Burns, L. (2005). The business of healthcare innovation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Cabrita, M. R. & Bontis, N. (2008). Intellectual capital and business performance in the portuguese banking industry. International journal of technology management, vol. 43, pp. 212-237. Collinge, W. (2009). Innovative organisational design for surgeries. Br J Healthcare Management, vol. 15, no. 10, pp. 496-503. Davenport, T. H., Prusak, L. & Wilson, J. (2003). Who ́s bringing you hot ideas and are you responding?. Harvard Business School Press, vol. 81, pp. 58-64. De Lacy, J., Miller-Burnett, M., Bonsell, P., Stith, K. and Sanchez, S. (2014). Implementation of an innovative postoperative monitoring approach for patients with obstructive sleep apnea. Healthcare Management Forum, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. S6-S10. Dillon, H., McDonald, S. and Jonus, I. (2012). Steamplicity: An innovative meal system that delivers. Healthcare Management Forum, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. S20-S28. Endsley, D. (2010). Innovation in action. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. García-Fontes, W. (2011). Incentives for research, development, and innovation in pharmaceuticals. Madrid: Springer Healthcare Iberica. Goulard, D. and Simpson, C. (1999). Acute Care has an Innovative Approach to the Bed Crisis!. Healthcare Management Forum, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 54-56. Govindarajan, V. & Trimble, C. (2005). Organizational DNA for strategic innovation. California management review, vol. 47, pp. 47-76 Gryboski, A., Van Tilburg, J., and Butterick, J., (2009). Quality Buckets: An Innovative Tool for Complying with Healthcare Mandates. Journal for Healthcare Quality, vol. 31, no. 6, pp. 3-7. Hasselder, A., Forte, D. and Horrex, J. (2009). Long-term conditions: innovative education for HCAs. Br J Healthcare Assistants, vol. 3, no. 9, pp. 460-462. Kodama, M. (2013). Competing through ICT capability. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Marcotte, L. (2014). Innovative state: Book review and interview with Aneesh Chopra, M.P.P. Healthcare. Osborne, S. and Brown, L. (n.d.). Handbook of innovation in public services. Pfannstiel, M. (2011). Positioning and self-presentation of innovative organizational forms on the European healthcare market. Journal of Management & Marketing in Healthcare, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 77-84. Pink, G., Deber, R., Lavoie, J. and Aserlind, E. (1991). Innovative Revenue Generation. Healthcare Management Forum, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 33-41. Quinn, D. (1996). Using Patient Feedback for Creating and Improving Innovative Programs. Journal for Healthcare Quality, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 26-32. Santos-Rodrigues, H., Figueroa, P. & Jardon, C. (2011). The main intellectual capital components that are relevant to the Product, process and management firm innovativeness. International Journal Of Transitions And Innovation Systems, vol. 1, pp. 271-301. Statham, D. (1999). Implementing innovative policies: the ‘levers’ available to managers. Br J Healthcare Management, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 16-17. Suter, E., Oelke, N., Hyman, M., Buzath, J. and Nimmock, M. (2006). Evaluation of planning and implementation for an innovative health centre. Healthcare Management Forum, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 26-31. Walshe, K. and Smith, J. (2011). Healthcare management. Maidenhead, Berkshire, England: McGraw Hill/Open University Press. Zipperer, L. and Amori, G. (2011). Knowledge management: An innovative risk management strategy. Journal of Healthcare Risk Management, vol. 30, no. 4, pp. 8-14. Read More