A concept comprising all applications used at the level of information technology, including the Internet, to enable more efficient patient care, thereby improving access and the quality of management of clinical processes. The Electronic Health Record (EHR) is part of this set of tools. E-health can be considered as a current avenue for implementing policies that aim at empowering patients and actors in the health care sector (Jacquinet & Curado, 2016 AU444: Anchored Object 220 ; Porfírio, Jacquinet, & Carrilho, 2013 AU445: Anchored Object 221 ).
Published in Chapter:
Management of Tacit Knowledge and the Issue of Empowerment of Patients and Stakeholders in the Health Care Sector
Marc Jacquinet (Universidade Aberta, Portugal), Henrique Curado (Politécnico do Porto, Portugal & Universidade do Minho, Portugal), Ângela Lacerda Nobre (Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal, Portugal), Maria José Sousa (Algarve University, Portugal), Marco Arraya (Universidade Aberta, Portugal), Rui Pimenta (Politécnico do Porto, Portugal), and António Eduardo Martins (Universidade Aberta, Portugal)
Copyright: © 2017
|Pages: 25
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-2394-9.ch017
Abstract
There is a growing literature on health and health care dedicated to empowerment of patients; but there is still a gap in the literature to conceptualize knowledge, to extend the discussion of the empowerment of the patients to the stakeholders. The discussion is at the level of managerial processes of empowerment and knowledge management related to health care. The present chapter starts with a review on empowerment, especially focused on the health sector. The following sections will develop a critical analysis of empowerment, mainly around the concept of tacit knowledge (Polanyi) and knowledge management. One key variable is the proximity of the actors involved in the empowerment process. This key variable is very much related to the tacitness issue of knowledge production and flows. The chapter extends the discussion of the empowerment of the patients to that of the stakeholders and the general debate about health literacy. A model is briefly described for the purpose of illustrating the learning process in a knowledge management implemented in health care.