Purpose The purpose of this study is twofold. First, it suggests that knowledge management (KM), as an academic discipline and managerial practice, provides valuable perspectives and tools to help health and social care management cope with both existing and future challenges. Second, it reviews the existing evidence on the effects of KM on the management of health and social care. Based on the results of the review, an evaluation framework for the effects of KM is proposed. Design/methodology/approach The literature review was conducted using the guidance of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement to search the Web of Science and SCOPUS databases. The search terms included “knowledge management”, “healthcare” and “effect.” Academic articles published between 2010 and 2020 were included. Findings The study identifies six main categories among the effects of KM on the management of health and social care as follows: enhanced understanding of customer needs, improved organizational performance, better targeted decision-making, improved quality of service, behavioral or cultural change and improved risk management. Originality/value This study contributes by summarizing the literature on the effects of KM on the management of health and social care and proposing avenues for future research in this area.

PurposeThis article analyses a major healthcare and social welfare reform establishing new regional and integrated wellbeing services counties in Finland. The authors approach the reform and service integration as a knowledge management (KM) issue and analyse how KM appears and contributes in the context of integrated care, specifically in the process of integrating social and health care.Design/methodology/approachThe article analyses the case organisation's KM initiatives in light of the integrated care literature and recognises the tasks and requirements for effective KM when building integrated health and social care system. The empirical research material for this qualitative study consisted of the case organisation's strategy documents, the results of an external maturity assessment, KM workshop materials and publicly available documentation of the Finnish health and social care reform.FindingsThis study identifies the mechanisms by which KM can support health and social services integration. At the macro level, national coordination and regional co-operation require common information structures. At the meso level, a shared regional strategy with shared objectives guides both organisational decision-making and collaboration between professionals. At the micro level, technology supported and data-driven planning of service chains complements the experiences of professionals and may help remove obstacles to integration.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature on integrated care by providing a more comprehensive view of the role and tasks of knowledge and KM when reforming health and social services than approaches focussing solely on health informatics and internal efficiency.

Knowledge management is expected to contribute to the management of health and social services as the challenges of the present and future are addressed. It is expected that organizations working in the field can be developed, thereby deriving efficiency benefits as well as promoting the effectiveness of services through knowledge management. However, despite the increasing interest in knowledge management as an organizational practice, there is a lack of evidence and practices showing how an effective knowledge management system should be designed, implemented, and promoted in health and social care organization. The integration of highly specialized and professionalized organizational cultures and traditions constitutes a complex context for managing knowledge. The purpose of this article is to identify development needs related to knowledge management systems in integrated health and social care and based on a case study suggest KM initiatives for responding these needs. The found key factors for knowledge management relate to strategic orientation, careful analysis of the organization’s knowledge and expertise, and an ability to harness these in a cross-administrative, multi-professional and strategy-oriented way. The qualitative analysis is based on the strategic documentation, the results of an external evaluation of the case organization’s knowledge management practices, and notes and other documentation of internal development workshops carried out in the case organization.