Reducing Barriers to Knowledge Sharing Among Healthcare Professionals and Patients

摘要

Successful diagnosis and treatment of patients is affected by what information is shared between the physician and the patient, as well as among the physician and other healthcare professionals involved in the patient's care plan. In some cases, important information gets lost during communication due to differences in expertise and perspective. These differences create barriers to getting, using, and sharing information in the healthcare setting. In this paper, two main types of knowledge, implicit and explicit, are highlighted. While explicit information is clearly communicated, interpretations may be modified by implicit understandings of information (or assumptions about another's implicit understandings). This paper will explore how healthcare professionals and patients interact in healthcare settings in sharing explicit and implicit information without assuming a shared mental model and terminology. Barriers to communication, task coordination, and workflow are evaluated for both knowledge sharing among medical professionals and for overall patient care that includes the patient as a knowledgeable partner. Workflow is defined in this context as the collaboration and teamwork necessary to successfully treat the patient. This paper will also analyze ways to transform implicit knowledge to explicit knowledge in healthcare delivery contexts.