Knowledge management in the control of healthcare associated infections in facilities management services in hospitals - its practices and challenges

Liyanage, C; Egbu, CO

Abstract

The paper reports on a research project which focuses on the control of Healthcare Associated Infections (HAI) in facilities management (FM) services (specifically domestic services). The main aim of this paper is to provide a detailed discussion on some of the findings of the research, which relates to knowledge management (KM). The findings are based on a case study and a questionnaire survey carried out during the mid-stages of the research. The paper discusses the practices of KM adopted by the domestic services in the control of HAI. It was identified that there are some challenges in domestic services that inhibit practices of KM, and the paper discusses this in detail. Finally, several recommendations are made to improve effective KM practices in the control of HAI; for example, there is a great need to improve Information Technology (IT) facilities in FM services in hospitals. Even if knowledge is captured (e.g. through expert groups) and stored (e.g. in the NHS e-library), getting the staff to utilise this stored knowledge is a challenge due to the lack of IT facilities. With this comes further challenges; for instance, the electronic documents are stagnated because staff are either unaware of or cannot access the involved technology.

Keywords: challenges, domestic services, healthcare associated infections, Information Technology (IT), knowledge management (KM)

Citation

Liyanage, C., & Egbu, C. Knowledge management in the control of healthcare associated infections in facilities management services in hospitals - its practices and challenges. Presented at Construction and Building Research Conference (COBRA) 2006, The Bartlett School, University College London, London, UK,

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: Construction and Building Research Conference (COBRA) 2006
• Conference Location: The Bartlett School, University College London, London, UK,
• End Date: Sep 8, 2006
• Publication Date: Sep 1, 2006
• Deposit Date: Feb 8, 2010
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 5, 2016
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference