Topic –  

Read the case study at the beginning of Chapter 5, “Database Saves the State of Washington Medicaid Dollars.” After reading the case study and completing additional independent research using the textbook and online resources, address the following:

• Consider your degree program or your selected industry and then give an example of how knowledge management systems could be used in your selected business.
• Describe the relationship between data and information in the context of your selected business.

Post 1 to reply to –  

Knowledge management systems are used in almost any business setting. My major is in healthcare administration and my job right now is in the healthcare field at Elliot Hospital at Primary Care offices. These systems help to store and retrieve knowledge. In the healthcare field solving problems and making decisions relies heavily on knowledge. Seeing how in today’s day and age everything has become more complex we rely more on knowledge. Having an effective strategy for knowledge management helps organizations to achieve the goals to have the best possible healthcare. An example of this is all the data that is gathered on each of the patients. We can get all their information from their age, weight, conditions, demographics, important information, the dos and the don’ts, and much more. By having this it makes it easier for clinical staff to make decisions. Sometimes even the clinical staff gets stuck on what to do. From this they can know what medications to give, how much, and when. Knowledge management can help with the flow of information and help to have more informed decisions.

This also helps to create a learning routine. This means that there is a date driven continuous learning environment that helps from experience. When people do things over and over they eventually remember it. When things are being recorded on patients in their charts, you can check there to see what it is right away. Database systems helps to assist with collecting data stored in a databases, which is easy to retrieve when you need it. By having this tool to go to it helps with the learning process.

            The relationship between data and information is that they are intertwined together although different at the same time. Data is a collection of unprocessed items like text, numbers, and images. Later on from this the data it is put into information. Data is raw and hasn’t been processed or interpreted. Information conveys meaning to the people reading it. It is processed data. Computers need data and people need the information from the data. Once the data is processed people can understand it fully and know what to do with it. Within the context of the medical field at doctors offices, data is the facts and demographics collected on patients, which is then turned into information that is useable to make decisions on patients medications and much more. Data is basically the building block for all information we as humans understand.

References

Haughom, D. (2016, July 01). Knowledge Management in Healthcare: It’s More Important Than You Realize. Retrieved September 12, 2017, from https://www.healthcatalyst.com/enable-knowledge-management-in-healthcare

Meiller , Y. (2011, April 1). Adaptive knowledge-based system for health care applications with RFID-generated information. Retrieved September 12, 2017, from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167923610002411

Reply Post 2 – 

   Knowledge management systems can be used in a variety of business settings and situations. In the assisted living sector of the economy, for example, data can be gathered on residents in the facilities and collated into information that can benefit the business. Data on residents such as age, health conditions, interests, predispositions, inclinations, etc. can be compiled in a database or knowledge management system for effective use by the employees of the assisted living business. Information within the knowledge management system can also be exploited for various uses such as what times of day to give patients medication or when to serve meals.

   The knowledge management system could also act as a repository of best practices as well as a collective of resident data. Within the database there could nest a collection of care giver notes and thoughts on residents which employees could reference for advice and guidance on various residents. For example, a caregiver could make a note that a certain resident likes to watch a certain TV program at a certain time of day, and other notes about the patient. The notes could be gathered together in one location under an umbrella with the patient’s name being the header. Whenever a caregiver wants to know more information about a particular resident, they could reference the portion of the knowledge management database that houses the pool of notes on specific residents. 

     The relationship between data and information is that they are similar while also possessing their own distinct qualities. Data can be viewed as a collection of 1’s and 0’s, bits and bytes that make sense to computers but have no contextual point of reference for humans to understand. It is when data is converted into information that meaning is provided in a human understandable format. Within the context of the assisted living business community, data are the points of facts collected on residents that is then changed in to usable information. Data provides the building blocks necessary to construct information.