Knowledge Creation at Multidisciplinary Patient Care Meetings: Implications for the Use of Collaborative Information Technology

This paper describes a study of Bullet Rounds in General Internal Medicine at an urban teaching hospital in Toronto, Canada. Bullet Rounds are multidisciplinary meetings of healthcare professionals involved in patient care. The goal of the study was to examine the processes of the meetings to understand the level of collaboration and knowledge exchange that takes place, the issues faced by such groups, and the potential role of information technology in supporting them. The methodology included data collection through observation, and quantitative analysis of verbal exchanges in Bullet Rounds. Using the Knowledge Management framework, options for support using information technology are discussed. The author concludes that Knowledge portals that can be used for repositories, prompts and sharing may be helpful in the context of Bullet Rounds. The study extends previous work on analysis of verbal exchanges and contributes to knowledge of collaborative practices in multidisciplinary groups meetings of healthcare practitioners.