This piece is the third installment of a five-part series on Public Health Capacity and Knowledge Management titled, “The Missing Pieces: How Better Knowledge Management Practices Can Complete the Public Health Puzzle.”

Since its inception, knowledge management has been recognized as a strategy for organizations to increase their efficiency, operate more smoothly, and save resources – primarily, time and money. Initially, it was developed by consultants as a way to foster continuous improvement, competitive advantage, and innovation. While this is obviously beneficial for corporate profit margins, knowledge management’s start as a corporate practice, did not stop professionals from other fields from recognizing its value. Public health organizations in particular can reap a host of benefits by implementing good knowledge management practices – not only in improving their ability to carry out their mission of saving lives, as we’ve shown, but also through the internal wins of saving time and resources.

In its work, Cadence group has seen public health agencies benefit from the strategy, processes, and technology of a sustainable KM program. One of the most tangible ways in which government agencies have used knowledge management systems to meet their own needs is in improving records management to ensure regulatory compliance. The National Archives explains the importance of sound records management and warns of the potential consequences of record keeping failures:

Frequently, agencies become aware of inadequate documentation because of congressional inquiries, Freedom of Information Act requests, litigation, or through the news media. This problem can have serious ramifications.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) has found that failure to create or maintain complete and accurate records has caused the expenditure of millions of dollars for goods or services never received.

Destruction of drafts and working files has left agencies unable to justify controversial decisions because they no longer have documentation of proposals and evaluations of alternatives.

The inability of the IRS to respond to accusations of impropriety because it had lost two years of e-mails from one of its top officials, and the ensuing political scandal, make these warnings painfully relevant. On the other hand, Cadence has assisted multiple government agencies on different levels to assess or improve their ability to be compliant with records retention and data privacy policies, and has even helped agencies to select and implement electronic records management systems.

Functional knowledge management systems can also improve efficiency and increase employee productivity in public health agencies. For example, a query tracking and knowledgebase system developed by Cadence allowed four offices in a federal public health agenc y to better respond to questions and information requests from the public and public health professionals. The system, an intranet-based application, allowed the agency to track and capture queries and query responses, locate experts, and find cleared answer-sources so that representatives could better answer questions. As a result, the agency was able to document due diligence for public communication, increase productivity through better training, reduce job performance issues, increase employee retention, and increase the speed and quality of service, thus improving customer satisfaction.

Finally, public health agencies often find themselves trying to fulfill expanding mandates amid funding shortages. In the face of fiscal constraint, it is often tempting for agencies to cut back on knowledge management initiatives to save money. However, UNICEF Knowledge Exchange Chief Ian Thorpe explains that a good knowledge management framework can go a long way to contain costs and improve value for money:

Just think of the amount of time you can spend looking for information and not finding it. Some estimates put this at up to 25% of the work time of an average knowledge worker. Having a functional repository of key documents, a [good] document management and electronic and hard copy filing system as well as a good taxonomy and search can greatly reduce the time and frustration involved in searching for things saving a lot of time and money.

He goes on to explain that making use of internal expertise and documenting lessons learned can save money by reducing the need to hire consultants and not repeating past mistakes. Furthermore, public health is by nature a collaborative discipline. Projects often benefit from input and contributions from other institutions. Collaborations can be vertical (e.g., federal, state, and/or local health departments working together) or horizontal (e.g., universities, other types of agencies, or community-based organizations), or both. Teamwork and collaboration can help to conserve resources by distributing the “legwork” associated with public health programs, thus conserving staff time and improving efficiency. Some situations, such as emergency response operations, even require multiple agencies to coordinate. Good knowledge management goes a long way to facilitate these types of collaborations by improving public health professionals’ ability to share information and work together.

Looking ahead, these advantages also allow an organization to better preserve its expertise – which we will discuss in the next installment.

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