Realising the Healthcare Value Proposition: The Need for KM and Technology

Challenges Currently Facing Healthcare

Healthcare is an important industry that touches most, if not all of us. Healthcare is noted for using leading edge technologies and embracing new scientific discoveries to enable better cures for diseases and better means to enable early detection of most life threatening diseases. However, the healthcare industry globally, and in the US specifically, has been extremely slow to adopt technologies that focus on better practice management and administrative needs (Wickramasinghe and Mills, 2001; Wickramasinghe and Schaffer, 2006).

In the final report compiled by the Committee on the Quality of Healthcare in America (America Institute of Medicine, 2001), it was noted that improving patient care is integrally linked to providing high quality healthcare. Furthermore, in order to achieve a high quality of healthcare the committee identified 6 key aims; namely, 1) healthcare should be safe – avoiding injuries to patients from the care that is intended to help them, 2) effective - providing services based on scientific knowledge to all who could benefit and refraining from providing services to those who will not benefit (i.e. avoiding under use and overuse), 3) patient-centered – providing care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs, and values and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions, 4) timely – reducing waiting and sometimes harmful delays for both those receiving care and those who give care, 5) efficient - avoiding waste and 6) equitable – providing care that doesn’t vary in quality based on personal characteristics.