Knowledge Management

[Richard Charles Holloway]

Kay, you've asked a very good question here.  (at least I attributed this
one correctly, eh?) (-;

The short answer to your question is that systems haven't been put in place
yet to make the sharing practical and effective. The entire hospital may not
be ready to change (yet), but at least the neo-natal clinic may need to
transform itself to realize an effective way of sharing knowledge.

In the case of nursing, and medical care in general, there have been some
tremendous strides to develop recognized team practices which encourages
collaborative contributions from each member of the team.  Culturally,
though, I suspect that the medical profession, like most other professions,
is still an individual contributor culture.  The performance drivers are
usually ones that encourage individual contribution.

Knowledge management practices are based on 4 unnatural acts--sharing my
knowledge with others; using (knowledge created by someone else); creating
(knowledge that I'll share with someone else); and improving (the knowledge
that "we've" created).  Without developing the capacity for team
(collaborative) practices, the knowledge sharing that does happen will
always be driven through sub-systemic practices (like the community of
practice).

I can go on at length...but thought it might be more worthwhile to point
people who are interested towards a few resources (on and off-line). Here
are 2 sites that provide some information resources about different aspects
of KM:

http://www.cio.com/sponsors/091599_km_1.html

http://www.outsights.com


Some interesting books on the topic include:

Anne Brooking, Corporate Memory
Thomas Stewart, Intellectual Capital
Ikujiro Nonaka & Hirotaka Takeuchi, The Knowledge-Creating Company
and one I haven't gotten to yet (which I hope is as good as these other 3)
Carla O'Dell, et al., If Only We Knew What We Know


------------------
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the
people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise
their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from
them, but to inform their discretion by education." --Thomas Jefferson

Richard Charles Holloway -
P.O. Box 2361, Olympia, WA 98507 USA Telephone 253.539.4014 or 206.568.7730
Thresholds <http://www.thresholds.com>
Meeting Masters <http://www.thresholds.com/masters.html>