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Codifying knowledge to improve patient safety: A qualitative study of practice-based interventions.

Turner, S; Higginson, J; Oborne, CA; Thomas, RE; Ramsay, AI; Fulop, NJ; (2014) Codifying knowledge to improve patient safety: A qualitative study of practice-based interventions. Soc Sci Med , 113 169 - 176. 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.05.031. Green open access

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Abstract

Although it is well established that health care professionals use tacit and codified knowledge to provide front-line care, less is known about how these two forms of knowledge can be combined to support improvement related to patient safety. Patient safety interventions involving the codification of knowledge were co-designed by university and hospital-based staff in two English National Health Service (NHS) hospitals to support the governance of medication safety and mortality and morbidity (M&M) meetings. At hospital A, a structured mortality review process was introduced into three clinical specialities from January to December 2010. A qualitative approach of observing M&M meetings (n = 30) and conducting interviews (n = 40) was used to examine the impact on meetings and on front-line clinicians and hospital managers. At hospital B, a medication safety 'scorecard' was administered on a general medicine and elderly care ward from September to November 2011. Weekly feedback meetings were observed (n = 18) and interviews with front-line staff conducted (n = 10) to examine how knowledge codification influenced behaviour. Codification was shown to support learning related to patient safety at the micro (front-line service) level by structuring the sharing of tacit knowledge, but the presence of professional and managerial boundaries at the organisational level affected the codification initiatives' implementation. The findings suggest that codifying knowledge to support improvement presents distinct challenges at the group and organisational level; translating knowledge across these levels is contingent on the presence of enabling organisational factors, including the alignment of learning from clinical practice with its governance.

Type: Article
Title: Codifying knowledge to improve patient safety: A qualitative study of practice-based interventions.
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.05.031
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.05.031
Language: English
Additional information: ©2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ ).
Keywords: Codification, Organisational learning, Patient safety, Quality improvement, Tacit knowledge, UK
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Applied Health Research
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Epidemiology and Public Health
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1432375
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