Developing Knowledge Management Capabilities Framework for Multi Specialty Hospitals

Abstract

Today organizations are constantly striving to stay ahead of the competitors with various business strategies Organizations distinguish themselves based on what they know and how they use it for business outcomes Hospitals are not an exception and their knowledge is a vital asset and employees are the only source of knowledge Though hospitals are knowledge intensive and have tremendous knowledge in each specialty healthcare knowledge is underutilized due to a lack of knowledge flow across the hospital especially in the point of care The purpose of this research is to develop knowledge management capabilities in the context of hospitals Based on an extensive literature review a research model was developed The research model was validated and hypotheses were tested using data collected from 620 clinical doctors of the 10 multi specialty hospitals with over 500 beds in Chennai and Bangalore The results identified the factors of knowledge management capabilities in respect of hospitals The results confirmed the effect of knowledge management capabilities on doctors effectiveness and in turn hospital performance It also revealed that human resource management practices and knowledge management measurement practices have improved the effect of knowledge management capabilities on doctors effectiveness The research contributes to a relatively less researched area on knowledge management and organizational performance in the context of hospitals The research emphasizes the implementation of knowledge management practices as an organizational strategy in the hospitals newline