Enabling Consumer-Driven Service Innovation in Health Care: The Role of Online Health Information Technologies (HIT) - Information Technology and Product Development - page 164

The key challenge here is to provide consumers with access to varied types of
information in ways that would facilitate knowledge conversion and thereby gen-
eration of innovative ideas. Many healthcare organizations are reluctant to share
explicit knowledge for various reasons and further many organizations do not have
well-developed health websites with information that would be relevant (or in a
usable form) to consumers. Another constraint is the lack of information standards
that make sharing and combining such information across organizations difficult.
The availability of such standards would help implementing interoperable HIT
applications, one of the cornerstones of value-driven healthcare. This would enable
consumer to access and connect relevant explicit knowledge (from different sources)
enhancing the possibilities of knowledge creation through knowledge combination
and internalization.
Based on the above discussion, we can conclude that the repository model
of knowledge management, characterized by health information websites, will
support consumer-driven service innovation through knowledge combination and
internalization.
Proposition P2: The repository model of knowledge management imple-
mented in the form of online health websites will enhance the extent of
consumer knowledge creation through knowledge combination and knowledge
internalization.
8.6.3 Supporting the Four Modes of Knowledge Conversion
As discussed previously, all the four modes of knowledge conversion are equally
important. Moreover, as Nonaka has showed, they complement one another and
form the spiral of knowledge creation (Nonaka, 1998). Healthcare organizations
have a concrete role to play in supporting these four modes of knowledge conversion
and thereby consumer-driven service innovation.
Apart from overcoming the challenges related to information standards and IT
infrastructure, healthcare organization can also provide meaningful connections
between online health communities and health information websites, thereby further
supporting the “spiral of knowledge creation.” This requires identifying appro-
priate information sources, categorizing such information, and building bridges
between health websites and online health communities based on specific diseases,
treatments, type of consumers, etc.
Early efforts in this area by healthcare organizations such as Kaiser Permanente
demonstrate this potential. Kaiser has established well-developed consumer-
oriented health information websites, where patients can have access to not only
relevant disease-specific information and services but also identify appropriate
online communities where they could connect with disease experts or peer patients.
Such efforts will accelerate consumer knowledge creation and lead to better con-
sumer perceptions of healthcare quality thereby favoring the healthcare organization
itself.