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- Another interesting observation was in the use of ICT (after the installation of
Lotus Notes and creation of a KM-conducive organizational culture) — ICT was
perceived to be responsible for creation and transfer of information and knowledge
in a bottom-up fashion. This was in sheer contrast to the top-down approach for
creation and transfer of information and knowledge which has resulted from the use
of the intranet as the key ICT (i.e., intranet, which was in existence before the
installation of Lotus Notes and creation of a KM-conducive organizational cul-
ture). - The adoption of Lotus Notes resulted in the creation of a common process
classification scheme (i.e., an organizational thesaurus) which uses a common
language and terminology that allows users to find presentations, data and
language models, schemas, best practices, and so forth. - Adoption of Lotus Notes was seen to create synergy between different depart-
ments of Company X. This success promoted senior managers at Company X to
consider adopting the KM paradigm and in this context — they were interested in
the OCKD model (Figure 4). This is discussed further in Section 5.2. - Senior managers at Company X believed that the next step would call for the
creation of a customized expert system whose user interface would be as friendly
and appealing as possible. They did add that such a system would allow Company
X to eliciting the best available knowledge, but it would be quite a while before it
would become a reality. They did add that they were working toward their long-term
goal of creating a customized expert system, which would complement their
initiatives (i.e., Lotus Notes and the communities of practice).
Adoption of the OCKD Framework at Company X
The participants in the research program for Company X presented the OCKD
framework to Company X. The accompanying report argued that it was important that
Company X starts to create CKM solutions for the healthcare sector. It continued that,
as a first step for building an enterprise-wide (i.e., entire hospital) CKM system, Company
X should make separate CKM suites for the following key healthcare ICT systems:
- Radiology Information Systems (RIS)
- Patient Administration System (PAS)
- Laboratory Information Systems (LIS)
- Clinical Patient Record (CPR)
- Pharmacy Systems (PS)
- Nursing Systems (NS)
The report stressed that the above-mentioned CKM suites, once implemented
individually, should automatically be able to interface with each other, thus making the
vision of an enterprise-wide CKM system a reality for the healthcare industry. No UK-
based healthcare ICT solution provider has come up with such a product, and in light of its
findings in its preliminary report, creation of a product like an enterprise-wide CKM system
would ensure that Company X becomes the undisputed market leader in the UK market.
The OCKD framework was very well received within Company X. However, senior
management noted that there remained several barriers to the possible acceptance of the
OCKD model: