Healthcare professionals are always in situations where they have to think fast and process an array of diagnostic test results, medications and past treatment responses in order to make decisions. Knowledge Management (KM) holds the key to proper patient care in these often complicated situations.

Knowledge management systems in Healthcare will streamline information for the best, most efficient patient care. Many Healthcare facilities have yet to fully utilize all the benefits of KM systems. It could make a the difference when, for instance, your chance of survival for open heart surgery can go from 2% to 16% with the proper knowledge and procedures.

 How certain roles within your organization, such as case managers and contact center staff, can use instant messaging and other collaboration software to communicate more effectively in real time.  How social software, such as wikis and blogs, can be used to link staff with the experts and information they need to better serve providers and members.  How you can use Web portals to develop a single view of a member’s account, where staff can access their medical data, demographics, claims and all other information from one screen.  How Web portals can also empower members, providers and staff to access data and interact more effectively.  How case managers can use communications software for seamless, real-time information sharing to better research, communicate and manage risk.

 Utilizes sensors to take vital sign data such as… › Blood pressure › Weight › Glucose level › Temperature  This data is wirelessly transmitted to the medical staff where it is analyzed

 Aggregates and analyzes information from clinical and business application systems, as well as data collected from sensors, patient monitoring systems, medical instruments and handheld devices  Helps healthcare staff answer questions such as how the organization is performing, the clinical results being achieved and patient satisfaction

 Collects, identifies and aggregates patient information from all source systems  Enable sharing of documents and images among healthcare enterprises, regardless of source, location or format in support of improved patient care.  Serve as a data repository and searchable registry of clinical documents  Record audit events generated by all exchange interactions  Establish a standards-based, data-sharing methodology vital to the creation and adoption of EHRs

 calibration of instruments  tools and special equipment  support for electronic signatures  records and audits  support for asset-related corrective and preventive action (CAPA) › Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) tags › IBM® WebSphere® Process Server › IBM WebSphere Portal Server › IBM Maximo › IBM Cognos › IBM WebSphere Sensor Event Server with Location Awareness Services › IBM WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus

 Patient information  Population studies including diet and genetics  Research evidence  Clinical results  Medical effectiveness and errors

 Accountability to national standards and transparency of medical errors  Greater collaboration including over distance  Easier transfer of best practices  Tracking of performance

 Communication between researchers and clinicians  Ease the difficulties of using research data in clinical settings  Researchers informed of clinical results  Overcoming local variable and ethnicity problems  Transfer of data over wide geographic areas

Knowledge may be accessed at three different times: before, during, or after the event. The most beneficial and obvious times would be before and during the moment it is needed. The KM-process goes through several stages: analysis, segmentation, correlation, clustering of the data and information and forecasting.

The aspects of the diagnosis and care are analyzed and modeled. Relationships and interrelations between them are analyzed and classified in the KM systems. As information is built up over time, patterns of similar characteristics come together. The KM process involves documenting knowledge of processes that require improvement, methods to achieve improvement, and ways to measure outcomes of the change.

These procedures will continually help ensure that the best quality of information is archived. KM resources enables us to see the ‘whole picture’ and recognize the care and/or forecast for the involved cases.

In order to develop knowledge management system, researchers behind the KM systems are required to do years of research from simple item such as FAQs, to extremely complex databases at a research hospital.

 Software Design Engineer: Assists in defining specifications for software programming applications and/or oversees the maintenance of existing programs to ensure continued performance and compliance with current guidelines and standards.  Coding Compliance Specialist: Under general direction of the Assistant Director of Coding and Clinical Documentation and with limited supervision, the Coding Compliance Specialist is primarily responsible for the development, implementation and maintenance of an effective compliance program related to the documentation and coding of medical records within the scope of the Health Information Management Department.  System Analysts: are IS professionals who understand both business and technology. They are active throughout the systems development process, and they integrate the work of the programmers, testers, and users.

Employees A KM system is to enable employees to have ready access to the organization's documented base of facts, sources of information, and solutions. In a hospital, KM system helps a doctor or a nurse instantaneous access to a patient’s medical history and provides better knowledge of medication effects and side effects.

Good security and good security awareness depend upon management support in generating, communicating, and implementing the security plan. In addition to these, Knowledge Management System also needs a person who is certified IS security professional, CISSP, and have been trained to incorporate the management support into security programs.

 Knowledge Management in Healthcare has obvious benefits that could really make the difference in people's lives.  There are still many healthcare facilities that still need to fully utilize these systems.  We are drawing a predictive conclusion that over the next decade there will be significant improvements in physician care based on medical knowledge management.  Each of the five components in these information systems will undergo technological improvements to ensure the best, most efficient information is available.

   John Gabbay and Andrée le May. "Evidence based guidelines or collectively constructed "mindlines?" Ethnographic study of knowledge management in primary care." BMJ, Oct 2004; 329: er= er=  Guptill, Janet. "Knowledge Management in Health Care." J Health Care Finance 31.3 (2005): Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 8 Mar article_4-05.pdf article_4-05.pdf