As the Obama Healthcare plan is being dissected by politicians and the public alike, in order to stimulate innovation and bring down healthcare cost the federal government must leverage Knowledge Management (KM). You may be asking yourself… How can we leverage KM to bring affordable healthcare to all Americans?
KM is about sharing know-how through collaboration, which includes the integration of systems to enable knowledge sharing. The knowledge being shared includes research, patient records, and doctor expertise. These collaborative work enviornments will bring more effective communication along with more responsiveness to patients. The following represent some links to information on leveraging KM in healthcare.
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/wbs/research/ikon/research/leanhealthcare/
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1560470
I welcome your comments and suggestions.
One additional benefit that KM will bring to the medical community is better and more effective health care the public will receive.
Some uses of KM in healthcare I can see immediately:
1) Patient records across medical institutions (via something like Google Health?)
2) Medical specialty silos built up within hospitals can be opened up (no longer having the ‘one’ doctor who knows the specifics of a certain procedure.
3) Not having to fill out those forms when visiting new doctors!