Critical Success Factors in Hospital Knowledge Management Implementation for Enhanced Health Infrastructure

Introduction

Knowledge is one of main resources in an organisation together with capital and labour and it must be properly managed. Healthcare organisations are among those organisations that are constantly generating knowledge (Khalghania Reshadatjoo and Iran-nejad-parizi, 2013; Yaghobi, Raksh and Javadi, 2015). O’Dell and Grayson (1998) define Knowledge Management as “a concise strategy to get the right knowledge, from the right people at the right time and as an aid for other people in the way of sharing and setting information into operation to improve the performance of the organisation”. The emphasis on the importance of knowledge as a new competitive advantage has led to the adoption of knowledge management (KM) in healthcare organisations (Omotayo, 2015). KM can facilitate healthcare organisations such as Mpilo Central Hospital to effectively manage their internal and external knowledge. In a healthcare environment, KM is essential because it informs decision-making, fosters error reduction, and encourages continuous learning while facilitating collaboration between medical professionals (Gerding, Brooks, Landen, Whitehead, Kelly, Allen and Sariksy, 2020). Poor KM practices in an organisation including healthcare service deliveries results in wastage of resources which include financial, time and human overload which balloons patients’ bills while compromising their health. McGlynn, Asch, Adams, Keesy and DeCristofaro (2003) cited in Ajanaku (2018: 1) postulate that “the delivery of substandard care to patients is due to the inability of nurses to access and apply current and relevant knowledge needed in patient care”. For improved quality care, there is a strong need to support and enable the activities of health professionals that improve knowledge flow in hospitals. Thus, knowledge management (KM) can improve quality of care. It is therefore paramount for healthcare institutions like Mpilo Central Hospital to implement KM which is essential for the success of health systems and healthcare delivery. However, implementation of a KM in a healthcare institution requires critical success factors such as technology, organizational culture, structure and human resources.

Healthcare is mostly delivered by medical practitioners such as medical doctors of every class including student doctors, nurses within their areas of specialization be it in training and para-medical staff like radiographers, pharmacists, occupational therapists and physiotherapists to mention a few. Much knowledge is generated and exchanged during this engagement with the patient. Knowledge management is influenced by technological infrastructure, organisational structure, culture and human resources as critical success factors (CSF) (Yaghobi, Raksh and Javadi, 2015). Organisations are influenced by one or more critical success factors in their bid to manage organisational and individual knowledge. However, there is little to no effort being put by healthcare organisations in Zimbabwe to fully capture and preserve this knowledge. To the best knowledge of the researchers, there was no policy or set of procedures, rules, guidelines and regulations that guided staff on their work processes which included methods to acquire, create, organize share and transfer their knowledge to fit their different situations at Mpilo Central Hospital.