Case Studies in Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management for Healthcare 341

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• A key constraint would be getting the top management of NHS Trusts to support
  any new projects and that Trusts and hospital administrators had first to recom-
  mend KM products. This would require NHS Trusts and hospital administrators to
  be convinced of the utility of the KM paradigm. This would call for substantiation
  of the results obtained from KM trials, preferably in health-related scenarios.


• NHS Trusts are now particularly more skeptical and demanding, both in terms of
  service and price, and more so for new innovative ICT products. They felt that the
  KM concept would take a few years to develop into a mature product.


• The UK solution provider market is driven by the centralized buying procedure of
  the NHS, that is, the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency, which is currently very
  cost sensitive. The need for a new KM system has to be recommended by the
  Agency.


• There is no measurement tool that could quantify the impact of the OCKD model
  on the processes of an organization.


• They also noted that there could be legal liabilities for the sellers of the model in
  case the stated best practices are not properly validated in a healthcare context.


• An additional key constraint was finance. Building an enterprise-wide CKM would
  require additional funds.


• Detailed supporting technical documentation for each CKM application had to be
  developed. This would take both time and money.

CONCLUDING COMMENTS

Company X is currently working with several NHS Trusts in an attempt to develop
jointly an enterprise-wide CKM product. It remains convinced on the feasibility of the
KM paradigm solving the problem of information explosion in healthcare. The company
is also in agreement with the fact that the current focus on technological solutions will
aggravate the problem of explosion in clinical information systems for healthcare
institutions. It remains convinced that any potential solution has to come from a domain
that synergistically combines people, organizational processes, and technology, thereby
enabling HSs to have a holistic view of the entire healthcare continuum and that an
enterprise-wide CKM product, based on the OCKD framework, is the first step in this
transformation.

REFERENCES

Blackler, F. (1995). Knowledge, knowledge work and organizations: An overview and

interpretation. Organization Studies, 16(6), 1021-1046.

Davenport, T.H., & Glaser, J. (2002). Just-in-time-delivery comes to knowledge manage-

ment. Harvard Business Review, 80 (7), 107-111.

Davis, M., & Klein, J. (2000, February 7). Net holds breakthrough solutions. Modern

Healthcare, 14.

Deveau, D. (2000). Minds plus matter: Knowledge is business power. Computing

Canada, 26 (8), 14-15.