How can managers in the hospital in the home units help to balance technology and physician – patient knowledge?

Abstract

Background. With the passing of time, knowledge like other resources can become obsolete. Thus, people in a healthcare system need to update their knowledge in order to keep pace with the ongoing changes in their operational environment. Information technology continually provides a great amount of new knowledge which can lead to healthcare professionals becoming overloaded with knowledge. This overloading can be alleviated by a process of unlearning which enables the pro- fessional to retain just the relevant and critical knowledge required to improve the quality of service provided by them. Objective. This paper shows some of the tools and methods that Hospital-in-the-Home Units (HHUs) have used to update the physician–patient knowledge and the technology knowledge of the HHUs’ personnel. Design. A survey study was carried out in the HHU in Spanish health system in 2010. Setting. Fifty-five doctors and 62 nurses belonging to 44 HHUs. Interventions. None. Results. Three hypotheses are presented and supported, which suggest that technology and physician–patient knowledge is related to the unlearning context and the unlearning context impacts positively on the quality of health services provided. Conclusion. The key benefits of the unlearning context for the quality of service provided in HHUs are clear: it enables them to identify and replace poor practices and also avoids the reinventi on of the wheel (e.g.: by minimizing unnecessary work caused by the use of poor methods) and it reduces costs through better produ ctivity and efficiency (improving services to patients)