Knowledge Management in Healthcare Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Knowledge Management in Healthcare - Essay ExampleThis 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 parry it from being an effective tool in effecting development in the field of healthcare and what are the grandeur of transferring the explicit knowledge..Healthcare organizations are facing many challenges in the 21st Century due to changes victorious place in global healthcare systems. Spiraling costs, financial constraints, increased emphasis on obligation and transparency, changes in education, growing complexities of bio medical examination 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 sacramental manduction of information and knowledge which is in turn leading healthcar e 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 insecure to the limitations of the body administering it. As acquiring information does not come with start a cost, readily available in time reliable information are sought for, thus the role of Knowledge Management to regulate and retort 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 favour 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 kinetics breaks the l inks of transferring knowledge from old to new employees leading to poor acquisition or transfer of worthful 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 draw rein 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, upper the maximal productivity of new employees, and improving the decision making and decreasing the process errors of new employees. (Morgan et al., 2