The localisation of and access to electronically available patient-centric information across the boundaries of healthcare organisations is mostly limited to the field of telemedicine applications today. However, considering the specialisation of medical organisations, the need for cost reduction e. g. by avoiding unnecessary examinations, and the mobility of the population especially at Europe...

Ecological studies, which consider patient groups rather than individuals, are common in health policy research. The ‘ecological fallacy’ is a well-recognised methodological concern, but in this perspectives paper, we focus on less often appreciated but equally important limitations of such studies. In particular, we consider reliability and power as they apply to ecological studies, and make r...

T he role that organisations play in provoking or preventing accidents has been long studied in industry, but has only recently begun to gain attention in health care. But, understanding safety in complex socio-technical systems requires analysis at multiple levels, and each level is characteristically best approached by a different discipline. Because the relevant disciplines (such as sociolog...

BACKGROUND Despite the widespread use of accreditation in many countries, and prevailing beliefs that accreditation is associated with variables contributing to clinical care and organisational outcomes, little systematic research has been conducted to examine its validity as a predictor of healthcare performance. OBJECTIVE To determine whether accreditation performance is associated with sel...

Literature indicates that Local Government Authorities (LGAs) have problems in meeting citizens’ demands. This may be attributed to the limitations of LGAs Information Technology (IT) infrastructures that are not integrated and do not allow them to deliver end-to-end integrated services. During the recent years, Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) has emerged to support organisations to in...

‘Whistleblowing’ has come to increased prominence in many health systems as a means of identifying and addressing quality and safety issues. But whistleblowing – and the reactions to it – have many complex and ambiguous aspects that need to be considered as part of the broader (organisational) cultural dynamics of healthcare institutions.

Information sharing among different healthcare organizations is critical for efficient and cost effective healthcare service delivery. Healthcare organisations with information systems need to be interconnected to ensure information exchange. Interconnectivity increases exposure to risk of damage, loss and fraud. Security and privacy of patients’ information are concerns of all healthcare organ...

This paper explains the concepts of knowledge management and how these apply to healthcare. It then presents a number of knowledge management case studies in order to examine how and where knowledge management initiatives might bring benefits to healthcare organisations. In order to present a more complete picture of knowledge management, the arguments of a number of critics of the knowledge ma...