Management of Tacit Knowledge and the Issue of Empowerment of Patients and Stakeholders in the Health Care Sector

Abstract

There is a growing literature on health and health care dedicated to empowerment of patients; but there is still a gap in the literature to conceptualize knowledge, to extend the discussion of the empowerment of the patients to the stakeholders. The discussion is at the level of managerial processes of empowerment and knowledge management related to health care. The present chapter starts with a review on empowerment, especially focused on the health sector. The following sections will develop a critical analysis of empowerment, mainly around the concept of tacit knowledge (Polanyi) and knowledge management. One key variable is the proximity of the actors involved in the empowerment process. This key variable is very much related to the tacitness issue of knowledge production and flows. The chapter extends the discussion of the empowerment of the patients to that of the stakeholders and the general debate about health literacy. A model is briefly described for the purpose of illustrating the learning process in a knowledge management implemented in health care.

Knowledge in Transition in Healthcare

“…They conclude that knowledge embedded in the interactions of workers and tasks potentiates the organization's capability to innovate and be more competitive. Hansen et al [24], Massaro et al [25], and Jacquinet et al [26] also emphasize the importance of the worker's role in knowledge sharing activities. They consider the balance between the uses of technologies for knowledge sharing and transition activities versus relying on people to share knowledge through more traditional means.…”