Managing Knowledge towards Enabling Healthcare Service Delivery

Abstract

In every living being, health is essentially important, and as such, requires attention. Health related matters are at one point or the other embedded into humans' strategic, tactical and operational activities. However, due to human complexity, manifesting from factors such as food consumption and weather effect, healthcare services have increasingly become essential to individuals, groups and organisations in their daily life activities. As healthcare services increase in significance, the knowledge acquired and used in carrying out its services also becomes vital. The management of knowledge has increased in its relevance over the years. This could be attributed to the complexity in human activities. Thus, the management of knowledge has many challenges, which are never straight forward, and does not always produce positive result. Based on the challenges, it is critical to understand the enabling and constraint scenery of knowledge management. This article applied Structuration Theory to examine the different types of knowledge within the healthcare environment, using one of South African healthcare service providers as a case. This was done in order to gain better understanding on how certain knowledge are managed to give the result that they do. A better understanding of how knowledge is acquired and used within the healthcare environment would assist practitioners and managers, including Government and academic researchers in their roles and responsibilities.