Journal of Healthcare Management - May/June 2013 - (Page 192)

Journal of H ealt H care M anage Ment 58:3 M ay /J une 2013 operations. The remaining pages document results. Scoring is weighted 45 percent to results, with no other section earning more than 12 percent (Baldrige Performance Excellence, 2009–2010). In the results section, applications typically report values for several dozen outcomes and major process measures. The recipients report results that are almost always in the top quartile and often top decile of comparison populations. In the published applications, the recipients are allowed to redact information that might impair their competitive position. Healthcare recipients have been quite forthcoming, apparently altering little. No applications are published except those of award recipients. The authors conducted a content analysis of the HCO Baldrige Award– winning applications facilitated by NVivo qualitative data analysis software (QSR International, 2010). The content analysis identified key passages reflecting the four KM elements proposed by Alavi and Leidner (2001) and, through an iterative process, developed a classification scheme of the concepts at a fine level of granularity. The authors marked passages that directly referenced knowledge creation, application, storage/retrieval, and transfer. They were at liberty to define the passage length, and they could identify more than one code for a given passage. While each Baldrige application was analyzed by a single researcher, the team met regularly to discuss the results and to develop consensus on ambiguities. We then tallied the coded data to identify frequently recurring KM processes. r E S U lt S Table 2 shows the results of our analysis. The counts of coded passages are displayed in the right-hand column of Table 2. We also tracked the number of applications in which a given category was referenced (column 2). As expected, we found that KM is a ubiquitous theme. The four major categories are addressed multiple times in every application reviewed. Most subtopics are addressed by all or nearly all nine applicants. The mode of the sources counted at the lowest level is 9; the median is 7. The 15 detailed code topics that all healthcare Baldrige recipients have addressed are shown in Table 3. To put these findings into context, each 50-page application contains about 300 to 350 paragraphs. The nine applications in total have about 2,800 paragraphs. We identified 2,170 paragraphs addressing KM-related issues— more than three fourths of the total. Almost half of the references address knowledge creation; one quarter of the references discuss knowledge application; another quarter address knowledge transfer; and less than 10 percent of the references pertain to storage and retrieval. In other words, these HCOs focus strongly on how to create, apply, and transfer knowledge among their associates. The mechanics of storing and retrieving information receive relatively less emphasis than other elements of KM. Examples of High-Frequency KM Elements In Table 3, we present descriptions of KM activities universally adopted by all nine Baldrige Award–recipient HCOs. 192

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Journal of Healthcare Management - May/June 2013

Journal of Healthcare Management - May/June 2013
Contents
Interview with Thomas C. Dolan, PhD, FACHE, CAE, President and CEO, American College of Healthcare Executives
Equity in Care: Picking Up the Pace
How Might a Reforming U.S. Healthcare Marketplace Threaten Balance Sheet Liquidity for Community Health Systems?
Assessing the Productivity of Advanced Practice Providers Using a Time and Motion Study
A Positive Deviance Perspective on Hospital Knowledge Management: Analysis of Baldrige Award Recipients 2002–2008
How to Improve Breast Cancer Care Measurement and Reporting: Suggestions from a Complex Urban Hospital
The Fear Factor in Healthcare: Employee Information Sharing

Journal of Healthcare Management - May/June 2013