Healthcare Knowledge Management Primer

The Healthcare Knowledge Management Primer explores and explains the nature of essential KM (knowledge management) principles in healtcare settings in an introductory and easy to understand fashion. Accessibility and usability in this manner will be of use to both students and professionals wishing to learn more about the key aspects of the KM field as it pertains to effecting superior healthcare delivery.

The Healthcare Knowledge Management Primer explores and explains the nature of essential KM (knowledge management) principles in healtcare settings in an introductory and easy to understand fashion. Accessibility and usability in this manner will be of use to both students and professionals wishing to learn more about the key aspects of the KM field as it pertains to effecting superior healthcare delivery.

The discipline of Knowledge Management (KM) is rapidly becoming established as an essential course or module in both information systems and management programs around the world. Many KM texts pitch theoretical issues at too technical or high a level, or presenting a only a theoretical prescriptive treatment of knowledge or KM modeling problems. The Knowledge Management Primer provides students with an essential understanding of KM approaches by examining the purpose and nature of its key components. The book demystifies the KM field by explaining in a precise, accessible manner the key concepts of KM tools, strategies, and techniques, and their benefits to contemporary organizations. Readers will find this book filled with approaches to managing and developing KM that are underpinned by theory and research, are integrative in nature, and address softer approaches in manifesting and recognizing knowledge.

This unique text is a practical guide to managing and developing Healthcare Knowledge Management (KM) that is underpinned by theory and research. It provides readers with an understanding of approaches to the critical nature and use of knowledge by investigating healthcare-based KM systems. Designed to demystify the KM process and demonstrate its applicability, this text offers contemporary and clinically-relevant lessons for future organizational implementations.

Pervasive healthcare is an emerging research discipline, focusing on the development and application of pervasive and ubiquitous computing technology for healthcare and wellness. Pervasive healthcare seeks to respond to a variety of pressures on healthcare systems, including the increased incidence of life-style related and chronic diseases, emerging consumerism in healthcare, need for empowering patients and relatives for self-care and management of their health, and need to provide seamless access for healthcare services, independent of time and place. Pervasive healthcare may be defined from two perspectives. First, it is the development and application of pervasive computing (or ubiquitous computing, ambient intelligence) technologies for healthcare, health and wellness management. Second, it seeks to make healthcare available to anyone, anytime, and anywhere by removing locational, time and other restraints while increasing both the coverage and quality of healthcare. This book proposes to define the emerging area of pervasive health and introduce key management principles, most especially knowledge management, its tools, techniques and technologies. In addition, the book takes a socio-technical, patient-centric approach which serves to emphasize the importance of a key triumvirate in healthcare management namely, the focus on people, process and technology. Last but not least the book discusses in detail a specific example of pervasive health, namely the potential use of a wireless technology solution in the monitoring of diabetic patients.

Knowledge management goes beyond data and information capture in computerized health records and ordering systems; it seeks to leverage the experiences of all who interact in healthcare to enhance care delivery, teamwork, and organizational learning. Knowledge management - if envisioned thoughtfully - takes a systemic approach to implementation that includes the embodiment of a learning culture. Knowledge is then used to support that culture and the knowledge workers within it to encourage them to share what they know, thusly enabling their peers, their organizations and ultimately their patients to benefit from their experience to proactively dismantle hierarchy and encourage sharing about what works, and what doesn’t to focus efforts on improvement. Knowledge Management in Healthcare draws on relevant business, clinical and health administration literature plus the analysis of discussions with a variety of clinical, administrative, leadership, patient and information experts. The result is a book that will inform thinking on knowledge access needs to mitigate potential failures, design lasting improvements and support the sharing of what is known to enable work towards attaining high reliability. It can be used as a general tool for leaders and individuals wishing to devise and implement a knowledge-sharing culture in their institution, design innovative activities supporting transparency and communication to strengthen existing programs intended to enhance knowledge sharing behaviours and contribute to high quality, safe care.

It is a tragic paradox of American health care: a system renowned for world-class doctors, the latest medical technologies, and miraculous treatments has shocking inadequacies when it comes to the health of the urban poor. Urban Health Knowledge Management outlines bold, workable strategies for addressing this disparity and eliminating the “knowledge islands” that so often disrupt effective service delivery. The book offers a wide-reaching global framework for organizational competence leading to improved care quality and outcomes for traditionally underserved clients in diverse, challenging settings. Its contributors understand the issues fluently, imparting both macro and micro concepts of KM with clear rationales and real-world examples as they: • Analyze key aspects of KM and explains their applicability to urban health. • Introduce the KM tools and technologies most relevant to health care delivery. • Offer evidence of the role of KM in improving clinical efficacy and executive decision-making. • Provide extended case examples of KM-based programs used in Washington, D.C. (child health), South Africa (HIV/AIDS), and Australia (health inequities). • Apply KM principles to urban health needs in developing countries. • Discuss new approaches to managing, evaluating, and improving delivery systems in the book’s “Measures and Metrics” section. Urban health professionals, as well as health care executives and administrators, will find Urban Health Knowledge Management a significant resource for bringing service delivery up to speed at a time of great advancement and change.

Creating Knowledge Based Healthcare Organizations brings together high quality concepts closely related to how knowledge management can be utilized in healthcare. It includes the methodologies, systems, and approaches needed to create and manage knowledge in various types of healthcare organizations. Furthermore, it has a global flavor, as we discuss knowledge management approaches in healthcare organizations throughout the world. For the first time, many of the concepts, tools, and techniques relevant to knowledge management in healthcare are available, offereing the reader an understanding of all the components required to utilize knowledge.