ANNUAL MEDICAL CHECK-UP
Educational Institute
Introduction
This case study aims to use a common life event that will illustrate the various concepts of knowledge management. My chosen event is my father’s one-day complete medical check-up in a hospital. It was done over 24 hours and I was the one who accompanied him there the whole night.
A hospital is a bee-hive of activities that uses physical data, creates medical information and knowledge that spurs action among medical professionals within and even outside where assistance is required. Patients are also led to act on the advice of these professionals to address problems. Records are created and compiled for my father and they who form part of his personal medical system for reference in the years to come. My father and I came out of that experience well-armed with a clear perspective of his state of health and the lifestyle he needed to lead to manage it wisely.
Event
My father is proactive when it comes to managing his health. I learned from him that his purpose for an annual check-up is to know if he has hidden ailments which he intends to address immediately. He also wants to know of predispositions which he can act on to prevent related medical conditions from occurring. On his first meeting with his family doctor, he was asked several questions; they were very basic ones delving on his general feelings and observations regarding his physical health. Prior to their conversation, I noticed that a thick folder with his name printed in front was on the desk top ready for the doctor’s perusal.
My father was then admitted in the hospital and subjected to a battery of tests and more questions in between. Some tests were taken in his private room but he would sometimes be moved to other rooms where there were equipment such as X-ray machine, ultrasound machine and the treadmill. He would be moved each time back to his room where doctors and their trainees would come now and then to advise him on the results of the tests.
The event ended with an evaluation meeting with the family doctor who interpreted reports and charts to my father regarding various aspects of his health. My father asked many questions for him to understand the many medical terms mentioned. They then agreed on required medication protocols and follow-up consultation schedules.
Elements Involved
There are two sources of data: my father’s memories and perceptions about his health and physical state of his body. He would answer questions from answers and would allow tests to be taken where instruments were applied to his body to get data. There were blood extractions, blood pressure readings and heart ECG readings, all using equipment and operated by skilled hospital staff. I learned that these readings and physical samples were analyzed and measured in laboratories by technicians. Reports and charts were produced in these laboratories which were further analyzed and interpreted by doctors who made more documents to complement those from the laboratories.
Specialist doctors and their trainees would then come in and out of my father’s room with reports, notes and sometimes voice recorders and computer tablets. They would discuss this information with him and would continue taking notes at the same time.
Relevant Data, Information and Knowledge
If questioned, my father can only come up with his opinions, feelings and interpretations. He was not sure of his answers but he was still giving them. Questions that evoke subjective answers like intensity of pain in headaches, frequency of urination and quality of sleep. General questions like these at the start yielded unstructured data. When the family doctor asked him to answer questions with scales of 1 to 10, data became more structured. There were categories for the major organs of the body like cardio-vascular, liver, kidneys and lungs. Answers grouped in this manner became information for each organ. A good blood pressure reading and a normal ECG graph gave the impression or information that my father had good cardio-vascular health. I noticed that meta-data regarding these readings were also clearly indicated such as dates, personnel who conducted the measurements, what machine was used, etc. These are useful when reviewing information in the future.
My father was relieved of such positive information as he held the belief beforehand that he has hypertension. Accurately measured data and interpreted information showed him what is true rather than what he believed in. Based on his answers regarding his lifestyle, the cardio doctor explained that he is doing the right things in physical exercise and mindful eating. He was advised to maintain such good habits. This is the benefit of a pursuit of facts, truth and knowledge that are based on scientifically and logically processed data which applied fittingly with my father’s health concerns. With support from medical science, my father gained more wisdom about health in general which he can impart to family and friends.
We were told that these new findings would comprise my father’s health records for this year and would be compared to those for the next year. These comprise the evidence for possible future health decisions for my father.
Information is the definition, organization and interpretation of data to make it meaningful. In this case, the readings that the doctors took from my father’s physical samples are analyzed ad interpreted to come up with statements that we find meaningful and understandable. For example, several blood pressure readings in the ranges of 85 to 100 for diastolic led us to understand that my father has first-stage hypertension. The additional data of his reports of intermittent headaches in the middle of the day further support this information.
Knowledge is both a product of the understanding of organized information and experiences from taking action on that information. The collection of such information as above which includes other body organs was interpreted by the doctors for us and provided us with the insight about my father’s overall health. We knew then that generally he is in good health but has some specific deficiencies which must be addressed. When he took the prescribed medications later on and which produced relief in his ailments, he acquired the validated knowledge about his ailments, the medication and how his body is responding to them.
Flow of Knowledge
The interactions between my father, the hospital facilities and equipment, the hospital personnel and ensuing results of all activities can be interpreted by the Popper’s Three World’s Model of knowledge flow (1.2 Three Worlds Theory 2013). It is a model which shows how data, information, knowledge and wisdom are created with the interactions of the physical world, our cognitive abilities and the mental objects that we create.
Triggered by the need for health management, my father initiated an event which is his annual comprehensive check-up. My father’s body and its specimen extracts, the hospital and its equipment, his past medical records were the physical objects that comprise World-1 of this event. Patients like my father are the social capital which is part of World-1. Service management ensures that patients are in good physical condition for further treatment once they enter the hospital. It also ensures the same good condition for all hospital facilities and equipment.
The physical objects in World-1 were observed and were the source of experience of all the persons involved: the doctors, hospital personnel, my father and I. The cognitive and intellectual abilities of all these persons comprise World-2. They perceived and processed all the sensate products that came out of World-1: images, sounds, conversation, odors, taste and texture produced by my father, his physical extracts and equipment readings. The quality of this processing is a function of the varying intellectual capabilities of those involved. The doctors possess the highest degree of cognition which was formed from many years of professional study in the medical sciences and experience. They were armed with medical knowledge which they applied on World-1. It is this knowledge which allowed them to identify what needs to be observed and to use the right equipment for it. The retention and use of all this medical knowledge is the goal of the knowledge management system in the hospital, (Lambe 2011). The aggregate of these skills and professional knowledge is the hospital’s human capital.
The successful performance of duties of the doctors and personnel externalizes or creates the data and information of World-3. They are in the form of data created from the observations in World-2 which find physical form in objects like X-ray plates, specimen descriptions, recordings, meeting notes and equipment readings. The knowledge processors of World-2 worked on these data to produce information which is “captured data” processed in meaningful form (The Differences Between Data, Information and Knowledge [no date]). These were in the form of medical reports containing analyses, diagnosis, interpretations, plans and protocols.
As the valuable end-products called structural capital, these records require information management which will preserve them for eventual reuse. They provided accurate and reliable reference to the event and objects of World-1 which is my father and his medical check-up for this year. They physical objects containing these data and information such as documents, files and plates will now become part of World-1 for this same event for next year.
My father followed all the instructions contained World-3. His experiences created feedback to the doctors and whatever analysis and conclusions formed created created added knowledge in World-2 for my father’s case.
Conclusion
I have realized how valuable hospital records are in that they are the product of many man-hours of exacting word from medical professionals. The information management function is critical in such a knowledge-intensive organization such as a hospital. The human body is a vast source of medical data which require highly trained professionals like doctors and technicians to create information and knowledge. Making these understandable to the patient will impart him wisdom in his own health management.
Glossary
Data – information output by a sensing device or organ that includes both useful and irrelevant or redundant information and must be processed to be meaningful
Evidence – something which shows that something else exists or is true
Fact – a piece of information presented as having objective reality
(Merriam-Webster [no date])
Human capital – the collective skills, knowledge, or other intangible assets of individuals that can be used to create economic value for the individuals, their employers, or their community
Information management – The planning, budgeting, control and exploitation of the information resources in an organisation
(Dictionary.com [no date])
Knowledge – information, understanding, or skill that you get from experience or education
(Merriam-Webster [no date])
Knowledge management – the technologies involved in creating, disseminating, and utilizing knowledge data; also any enterprise involved in this
(Dictionary.com [no date])
Meta-data – data that provides information about other data
Record – a collection of related items of information (as in a database) treated as a unit
(Merriam-Webster [no date])
Social capital – the network of social connections that exist between people, and their shared values and norms of behaviour, which enable and encourage mutually advantageous social cooperation
(Dictionary.com [no date])
Structural capital – Competitive intelligence, formulas, information systems, patents, policies, processes, etc., that result from the products or systems the firm has created over time
(BusinessDictionary.com no date)
Truth – a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true
(Merriam-Webster [no date])
Unstructured data – information that either does not have a pre-defined data model or is not organized in a pre-defined manner
(Unstructured data [no date])
References
1.2 Three Worlds Theory [2013]. [Online]. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq-rKhSm0xI&feature=youtu.be [Accessed: 16th June 2016].
BusinessDictionary.com no date]. [Online]. Available at: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/ Accessed: 16th June 2016].
Dictionary.com [no date]. [Online]. Available at: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/ [Accessed: 16th June 2016].
Lambe, P. [2011]. The unacknowledged parentage of knowledge management. Journal of Knowledge Management, 15(2), 175-197.
Merriam-Webster [no date]. [Online]. Available at: http://www.merriam-webster.com/ [Accessed: 16th June 2016].
The Differences Between Data, Information and Knowledge [no date]. [Online]. Infogineering. Available at: http://www.infogineering.net/data-information-knowledge.htm Accessed: 16th June 2016].
Unstructured data [no date]. [Online]. Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unstructured_data Accessed: 16th June 2016].
