Aged care informatics: exploring the role of information, knowledge and aged care management

Aged care is projected to be the fastest-growing sector within health and community care industries. Strengthening the care-giving workforce, compliance, delivery and technology is not only vital to our social infrastructure and improving the quality of care, but also has the potential to drive long-term economic growth and contribute to the GDP. This paper examines the role of knowledge management (KM) in aged care organizations to assist in the delivery of aged care. With limited research related to KM in aged care, this paper advances knowledge and offers a unique view of KM from the perspective of 22 aged care stakeholders. Using indepth interviewing, this paper explores the definition of knowledge in aged care facilities, the importance of knowledge planning, capture and diffusion for accreditation purposes and offers recommendations for the development of sustainable knowledge management practice and development. The paper culminates in an offering a checklist for aged care facilities and advances the discourse in this sector

Key enablers for knowledge management for Australian not-for-profit organizations: building an integrated approach to build, maintain, and sustain KM

Not-for-Profit (NFPs) organizations operate in an increasingly competitive marketplace for funding, staff and volunteers, and donations. Further, NFPs, both in Australia and internationally, are growing rapidly in number in response to increasing needs for humanitarian services and environmental sustainability that local and national governments and established international aid organizations cannot or struggle to provide effectively. Many NFPs are being driven to adopt more commercial practices in order to improve their donor appeal, government grant applications, staff/volunteer retention, and service delivery. Knowledge Management (KM) is one such 'corporate' practice being explored to address the increasingly competitive environment. Although the concept of knowledge management may be basically understood in NFPs, researchers and NFP managers are yet to explore and fully understand the complex inter-relationships of organizational culture, ICT, internal marketing, employee engagement, and performance management as collective enablers on the capture, coordination, diffusion, and renewal of knowledge in a NFP environment. This chapter presents research into the relationship of KM with those enabling elements and presents an implementation model to assist NFPs to better understand how to plan and sustain KM activity from integrated organisational and knowledge worker perspectives. The model emphasises an enduring integrated approach to KM to drive and sustain the knowledge capture and renewal continuum. The model provides an important contribution on 'how to' do KM