The implementation of information systems is increasingly resulting in

Workflow management systems (WFMSs)

Process-based systems -mostly using emergent technologies like workflow engines, XML standards and so on, are becoming part of organisational life. Yet in automating, or shaping organisational processes, they are making subtle but profound changes in culture, knowledge creation, and knowledge management. This paper will contend that the process of acquiring and managing data is itself a knowledge building process. It will also assert that the process of creating a patient's health record is a dynamic one, which adds to the sum knowledge of the organisation, not just in terms of the accretion of data, but in the understanding and opportunities for reflection which it creates. Finally, the paper will argue that such dynamic knowledge can be used, not only to deliver better healthcare, but to improve the organisational structure and behaviour in order to improve the means by which healthcare is delivered.

No abstract

This article reviews the varieties of knowledge that have to be used in mental health care, and points out some of the unique features of knowledge management in this area. It focuses on the use of types of tacit knowledge—from know-how to emotion. It acknowledges the role played by mediated knowledge, which becomes part of the disposition and interplay of power in both staff-patient and interstaff relationships. Conventional information systems, based on transaction models (such as databases) do not always answer the needs of practitioners in this environment; consideration is given to process-based systems as a means of both generating knowledge and forming the pivotal point between technologically-mediated knowledge (largely explicit) and behaviorally or linguistically mediated knowledge (mostly tacit). As an exploratory study, primary data were obtained from mental health practitioners using a grounded theory approach and discourse analysis.