However, a predominant number of published research articles within the health sector tend to focus on the conceptual and theoretical aspects of KM that, although valuable, lack a pragmatic component. Overall, there is an increased interest in the health care literature about the importance of capturing, sharing, and using explicit and tacit knowledge within the daily work of health professionals. A final observation is that KM health initiatives tend to focus on one solution (e.g., ICT, evidence-based practice) instead of a comprehensive strategy. The on-going emphasis on explicit knowledge would have to change if tacit knowledge were to be seen as an important resource in health care. A few health care researchers have examined the importance of tacit knowledge, evaluating the role that it plays, and how it ought to be considered in future research. Tacit knowledge can be described as knowledge that is acquired through practice and experience and can be difficult to communicate (sometimes referred to as "know-how"), while explicit knowledge is often more formal, codified in writing and seen to be easier to communicate. The point to note is that evidence-based practice focuses on the transfer of explicit knowledge (i.e., research literature), while KM promotes the transfer of explicit and tacit knowledge. Another aspect of the health care environment is the strong evidence-based medicine movement that has penetrated continuing education and quality improvement efforts. Nevertheless, sustainability of such structures continues to be an issue. Research has indicated that there may be value in having a venue, or a social space that enables and encourages knowledge sharing to take place. These strategies can be ICT based, narrowly focused on practice improvement and/or broadly defined as networks involving multiple stakeholders and objectives. Communities of practice knowledge-sharing strategies have been used to promote interactions among health practitioners. Further, they do not support knowledge development and sharing. A criticism of this approach is that these ICTs are static and do not provide appropriate context to make an effective clinical diagnosis. Examples of such systems include electronic libraries (e-libraries), repositories containing research articles, clinical guidelines or best practices to assist organizations in managing knowledge. Current KM practices in health care are focused on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT). Health care organizations, as late adopters of the KM concept, are starting to implement and evaluate KM strategies. Recently, the health care sector has also begun to focus on the systematic management of knowledge. KM is viewed as a way of providing the right information, to the right person, at the right time, with the potential of attaining greater competitive advantage.
The area of 'knowledge management' (KM) emerged in the early 1990s within various fields, including business administration, public policy, information systems management, library and information sciences. While more research needs to be done on how best to do this in healthcare, the lessons learned from the business sector can provide a foundation on which to build. The health care sector is at a pinnacle place, with incredible opportunities to design, implement (and evaluate) knowledge management systems. Common facilitators and barriers to implementing these strategies are discussed in the business literature, but rigorous studies about the effectiveness of such initiatives are lacking. KM strategies include such things as training sessions, communication technologies, process mapping and communities of practice. ResultsĨ3 articles were reviewed and data were extracted to: (1) uncover reasons for initiating knowledge management strategies, (2) identify potential knowledge management strategies/solutions, and (3) describe facilitators and barriers to knowledge management. We included articles published between 2000-2009 we excluded non-English articles. We searched seven databases using keywords such as "knowledge management", "organizational knowledge", and "business performance". The purpose of this paper was to summarize previous studies from the business literature that explored specific knowledge management tools, with the aim of extracting lessons that could be applied in the health domain. It has become essential to develop a way to manage the information coming in to and going out of a health care organization. Only recently has knowledge management been receiving attention by the health care sector, in part due to the ever growing amount of information that health care practitioners must handle. The concept of knowledge management has been prevalent in the business sector for decades.
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