Knowledge Integration in Models for Healthcare Decision Making

Typical healthcare organizations operate as adhocracies with multiple specialized departments. Therefore, effective healthcare decision-making relies on integrating knowledge from these multiple specialties. This study shows how knowledge integration practices can synthesize expertise in healthcare information systems models. Such models embedded in reports and dashboards can support medical decision making by various organizational stakeholders. Policy makers, regional hospital administrators and medical department chiefs rely on the models for resource allocation decisions. Clinicians use the models to make decisions on patient care. Using a field study of a large nationalized healthcare organization, our study posits that knowledge integration plays a significant role in both producing the models from healthcare data and using those models in decision making.