C8 Health (https://c8health.com), the clinical resource management platform for healthcare providers, has published the results of its latest research in a report titled “The State of Knowledge Management in Hospitals.” A survey of 398 medical professionals in the United States across multiple disciplines and specialties revealed that critical knowledge in hospitals is often difficult to find, frequently resulting in negative outcomes including provider burnout, patient injury, or even death.

More than a decade after the Electronic Medical Records (EMR) Mandate, which required healthcare organizations to implement EMR systems and use digital records, went into effect, many hospital employees still struggle with access to critical knowledge. Survey responses reveal that clinical resources are often siloed, dispersed between different systems, and disconnected from clinical workflows.

Additional key findings from the report include:

• Almost half of medical professionals reported witnessing less-than-ideal patient care as a result of poor knowledge access. One in ten of these incidents resulted in patient injury or death. As one responder put it, “It is no exaggeration to say that inefficient knowledge management can have harmful, or even fatal, consequences”.
• Only one in five can find the knowledge they’re looking for 100% of the time.
• 53% of high-volume consumers of clinical resources do not find their systems to be effective.
• 50% of hospital administrations consider their knowledge management solutions to be outdated.

“Though hospitals have made progress in how they manage patient data through EMR systems, many are still using outdated systems to manage their clinical resources. This makes it difficult for medical professionals to find the information they need,” said Galia Schwartz, CEO at C8 Health. “When providers have to spend more time trying to figure out unintuitive systems, that’s less time they have to spend with their patients. Moreover, without managing this content, keeping it updated, and disseminating it efficiently, hospitals struggle to implement their best practices, which significantly impacts patient outcomes and cost of care. With this report, we want to highlight these important issues so we can help hospitals identify and improve them.”

Download “The State of Knowledge Management in Hospitals” to learn more about the causes of poor knowledge management, as well as how to address them. The full report can be downloaded at https://c8health.com/state-of-knowledge-management-report.