A Contextual Framework for Improving Knowledge Sharing Among Healthcare Professionals at St. Peter’s Hospital
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Date
2015-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Background:- Knowledge is critical asset to individual as well as to organization.
Managing this organizational key asset effectively will help the organization to be
successful in this increasingly competitive environment. Knowledge sharing is a
fundamental means through which employees in an organization exchange their
knowledge and experience. Therefore the aim of this research project is to
propose theoretical framework to drive knowledge sharing practice among
healthcare professionals in St. Peter’s hospital.
Objective:- The purpose of this project is to explore the current knowledge
sharing practice among health professionals so as to propose contextual
framework that enable to enhance knowledge flow in St. Peter’s Hospital.
Methods:-A facility based quantitative and qualitative study with cross sectional
study design was conducted from March to April 2015G.C. A self administered
questionnaire was distributed to a total of 191 healthcare professionals of St.
Peter’s hospital during the data collection period and to supplement the
quantitative study in-depth interviews with department heads was conducted. The
quantitative data was entered and cleaned by epinfo version 3.5.1 and analyzed
using SPSS version 16. Frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation were
used to describe the study population and after checking the normality of the
dependent variable linear regression with 95 % confidence interval was used to
assess the presence of association between the dependent and independent
variable.
Result:- The finding of this study shows that healthcare professionals of St.
Peter’s hospital are infrequently practicing knowledge sharing. According to
multivariate analysis, the factors that were independent predictors of knowledge
sharing are willingness and lack of information technology. Knowledge sharing
practice of healthcare professionals is by 0.10 score more in presence of
willingness than absence with Aβ(95%CI):0.10[0.01, 0.20] and knowledge
sharing practice is by 0.07 score less when there is lack of information technology
than presence of information technology with Aβ(95%CI): -0.07[-0.12 , -0.01].
Hence a contextual framework is designed to enable information technology plays
its part in enhancing knowledge sharing in the hospital.
Conclusion and Recommendation:- The study St.Peter’s hospital shows that
most of healthcare professionals are aware of the importance of knowledge
sharing and have appropriate personality for knowledge sharing but they are not
engaged in knowledge sharing frequently. So the hospital administration should
plan a way to strengthen knowledge sharing practice by improving the identified
contextual factors through implementing the designed contextual framework.
Key words: Knowledge, knowledge sharing, knowledge sharing barriers,
contextual framework.
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Keywords
Knowledge, knowledge sharing, knowledge sharing barriers, contextual framework