Improving the Patient Discharge Planning Process through Knowledge Management by Using the Internet of Things

Abstract

<p class="MsoNormal"> <span lang="EN-US">The UK National Health Service (NHS) is faced with problems of managing patient discharge and preventing the prob</span><span lang="EN-US">lems that result from it such as frequent readmissions, delayed discharge, long waiting lists, bed blocking and other such consequences. The problem is exacerbated by the growth in size, complexity and the number of chronic diseases in the NHS. In addition, there is an increase in demand for high quality care, processes and planning. Effective Discharge Planning (DP) requires practitioners to have appropriate, patient personalised and updated knowledge in order to be able to make informed and holistic decisions about a patients’ discharge. This paper examines the role of Knowledge Management (KM) in both sharing knowledge and using tacit knowledge to create appropriate patient discharge pathways. The paper details the factors resulting in inadequate DP, and demonstrates the use of Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine2Machine (M2M) as candidate technologies and possible solutions which can help reduce the problem. The use of devices that a patient can take home and devices which are perused in the hospital generate information, which can serve useful when presented to the right person at the right time, thus harvesting knowledge. The knowledge when fed back can support practitioners in making holistic decisions with regards to a patients’ discharge.</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span> </p

Contemporary performance measurement and management (PMM) in digital economies

“…One participant, however, argued that while NSC is good at monitoring their ships (over sea), they also need to monitor and track their on ground vehicles and equipment not only to ensure safety and visibility but also in their planning and scheduling when the information is communicated and shared with management and administration. The above benefits of IoT are also reflected in the literature where Swan (2012) and Kamalanathan et al (2013) discussed it in various sectors including automotive, logistics and health care.…”

“…Its application is wide ranging such as in automotive, logistics, transport, healthcare, research, bio-technology. Kamalanathan et al (2013) suggest that IoT could be creatively used as a knowledge management tool in monitoring patients continuously and effectively after discharge from hospitals. As a result of IoT in a wide range of applications, large information to be readily available across supply chains thus reducing lead times while at the same time increasing responsiveness.…”

A Knowledge Management-based Decision-making Model for Planning Patient Discharge in the UK National Health Service

“…It ties them together into a seamless whole by aligning organisational information and practices with the organisation's strategic objectives, fits into employee's daily work activities, manages content effectively, and considers the potential business opportunities associated with sharing knowledge with suppliers and customers [53]. As a result of this, KM better enables individuals, systems and organisations to exhibit intelligent behaviour in a dynamic and agile environment [54].…”

A Qualitative Evaluation of IoT-Driven eHealth: Knowledge Management, Business Models and Opportunities, Deployment and Evolution

“…Section two provides a theoretical view on the IoT-driven eHealth in the context of Knowledge Management (KM). Section three contains a case study on improving patient discharge planning process through knowledge management by using IoT and Big Data in the UK National Health Service [11,17], to illustrate a strong connection between KM and IoT-driven eHealth. This section focuses on contributions of IoT to eHealth and analyzes requirements, limitations and entry barriers for IoTdriven eHealth, as well as security and privacy issues, having established that these issues are not the first topics to be addressed, but the benefits of applying eHealth instead.…”

“…The attention, and hype, around the Internet of Things (IoT) [14,15], and, in particular, IoT-driven eHealth [6], has further increased the visibility and expectation of eHealth. In this paper the authors make an effort to give a reasonable, qualitative evaluation of what can be expected of IoT in eHealth [11] and IoT-driven eHealth itself [6]. They look at the possible contributions of IoT to eHealth, the requirements that need to be met, the benefits and limitations of eHealth, and the entry barriers [5,16,18].…”