In today’s healthcare industry, we need all the help we can get. COVID-19 continues to cause sickness and even death among the population, filling hospitals and overwhelming medical staff. There aren’t enough professionals to comfortably manage the situation or stem the tide of demand on the horizon as the population continues to age up.

Fortunately, Knowledge Management (KM) is here to help the medical industry handle extreme levels of demand by collating, organizing, and disseminating important public health information. As a result, we can apply practical solutions and insights in dealing with even the most disastrous of situations.

By collecting data, making care more accessible, and empowering health research, KM brings new levels of practicality and efficiency to healthcare today. Here are the important details.

Collecting Healthcare Data

The COVID-19 response has been an exercise in adapting KM systems to produce better health outcomes. In fact, much of the response has stemmed from the use of these tools in collecting healthcare data regarding the coronavirus and its spread. Public health experts have used KM frameworks to evaluate everything from exposure data to the pressure on front-line workers. From there, they can cultivate unique solutions.

Knowledge Management is integral to gathering the kind of data needed for any large-scale health response. Epidemiologists, for instance, require comprehensive access to positive tests, spread information, and rising numbers. KM systems collate this information in a singular dashboard, providing epidemiologists with the insights they need to structure intuitive next steps that protect public health.

In this fashion, KM is critical to a practical health approach. After all, the ability to manage knowledge like data makes all the difference when formulating an effective response to emergencies like a global pandemic. Without this transparent and comprehensive view, public health officials would be completely at a loss for how to implement policies that truly make a difference, instead forced to rely only on hearsay.

In turn, maintaining a comprehensive center of valuable data gives health providers the means to make healthcare more accessible. This is possible through advancing technology and the marketplace of valuable data.

Making Care More Accessible

KM makes healthcare more accessible by democratizing insights for a greater user base. 97% of Americans have smartphones and this massive demographic means that data and knowledge can be cultivated where they are most helpful, like when it comes to emergency care solutions.

For instance, medical smartphone IDs are applications that make important healthcare metrics available to first responders even if you are unconscious. The medical professional simply has to push a button or scan your wearable device to get info like your name, blood type, known allergies, and emergency contact information. This is, of course, if you have allowed your device to offer such information and the providers are savvy enough or have been trained to look for it.

Medical smartphone IDs are just one of the many ways medical knowledge has become more accessible in the situations in which it is most needed. This has life-saving potential, as the ability to quickly identify a patient and pull up their conditions and risk factors could make the difference in first-response care.

But emergencies aren’t the only times KM makes care more accessible. The entire telehealth industry—popularized during the COVID-19 pandemic—exists because care providers can streamline their knowledge for easy access when it comes to treating patients over the web. This means active databases in which patient identity can be quickly and accurately verified alongside all their treatment history.

KM is revolutionizing the healthcare industry through practical and accessible applications like telehealth. In turn, care providers now have access to more medical data than ever before, which further empowers both knowledge and care solutions.

Empowering Research

Last but far from least, Knowledge Management plays an essential role in empowering research. This is because data comes with the territory of accessible care. Now, care professionals are simply applying this available data into more powerful information systems, equipped with AI analytics and cybersecurity protections.

Little has disrupted the future of KM quite like these tools. With AI, for instance, health researchers can scan and connect thousands of data points in an instant. No longer will experts have to manually review diagnostic imaging or rely on invasive visits to gain insights about a patient. Instead, AI applied to big data sets can pull out connections in symptoms, risk factors, and avenues for treatment.

This means that research can now be done on an unprecedented scale, as well. All a smart KM system has to do is de-identify medical data to ensure HIPAA protocol is maintained, then analytics can be applied to health-related problems. Imagine the knowledge that can be cultivated through well-maintained medical databases. With information assembled across a global population, understanding of medical conditions can be revolutionized.

Already, KM systems are being applied in the effort to cure diseases and save lives. One AI model even outperformed a radiologist when it came to diagnosing breast cancer. With the power and potential of effective management of medical knowledge, we can implement life-saving solutions for all kinds of diseases. It all starts with the knowledge needed to enhance performance.

In today’s healthcare industry, Knowledge Management is both practical and effective. In the future, these features will only empower better care and more accessible treatment.

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Knowledge management is by far one of the most important tools in the inventory of a successful business. In other words, having a knowledge management strategy can directly impact the way your business functions and how well it performs in different aspects.

However, there’s also a different side to knowledge management. If used incorrectly, knowledge management can be harmful to your business.

Read on to find out about the successes and failures of knowledge management and how you can use it in your own business.

What Is Knowledge Management?

At its core, knowledge management is an approach to organizing and sharing knowledge within an organization or company. It’s a highly systematic approach that helps you convert expertise into value within your business. A knowledge management system (known as KMS) is a tool that will be useful to businesses of all types and sizes, no matter what your industry or niche is.

Knowledge management might seem like a fairly recent invention, but it actually has its roots in the 1980s. In fact, the term itself was coined in 1987. Management consultants were the pioneers of knowledge management at the time as they realized how important capturing, organizing, and sharing knowledge within an organization was. When businesses started transitioning to a more digital-based setup, knowledge management gained more traction.

To put it simply, businesses realized that the new tech they were integrating into their systems could be used to connect different departments as well as new and veteran employees. By using databases, wikis, and intranets among other things, businesses were able to share knowledge and information easier to build better business infrastructure.

But even though knowledge management might seem like a solution to all of your business problems, it’s not that simple. There are many challenges to using knowledge management and many ways how everything could go wrong if you use knowledge management incorrectly.

Successes of Knowledge Management

Obviously, it’s worth starting from the successes or advantages of knowledge management. Here are just a few major ones:

• Better Organization: First and foremost, knowledge management can help you get better organization within your business, both in terms of processes and the way you manage data. It will be easier to find and recycle or reuse resources and information which will lead you to…
• Structured Business Processes: More relevant information and resources will help you create better products and services and maybe even outperform your competitors.
• Informed Decision-Making: By using your knowledge correctly, you can perform more informed decision-making. This will lead you to develop a better strategy for your business.
• Faster Problem-Solving: By making informed decisions, you can solve problems much faster. In other words, you can increase productivity as well as operational efficiency of your teams and individual employees.
• Easier Sharing of Expertise: Knowledge management allows you to share expertise easier between your employees. This will help them grow and develop while fully utilizing your intellectual capital.
• More Innovation: Using knowledge management means using all the skills, resources, and information you have which can indirectly lead to more innovation in your business. Besides, you could even predict market trends before your competitors.
• Improved Communication: As you share knowledge within your business, you will improve communication and collaboration between your different departments. This can diversify the opinions you get in discussions and can lead you to even better decision-making (and increased profitability).

Whether you want to improve your email marketing by helping your customer service and marketing departments work closer or you want to make your onboarding process for new employees run smoother, knowledge management could be the tool you need. That being said, there are still some things to consider before you get started.

Failures of Knowledge Management

Undeniably, knowledge management has many benefits, but it also has failures or disadvantages you shouldn’t forget about. Here are some major issues you can encounter:

• Aligning Knowledge Management with Business Strategy: Perhaps the biggest challenge for any business when getting started with knowledge management is trying to align it with your existing business strategy. You already have goals and objectives which could be difficult to pursue when you set knowledge management aims that may go counter to them. This is why it is important to consider your existing strategy before you start thinking about objectives for your knowledge management plan.
• Difficulty Finding Information and Resources: Another major challenge on your way will be actually finding information and resources. It may sound easy at first, but you will be surprised just how much knowledge and expertise within your business is taken for granted or even hidden from you. This knowledge is valuable and needs to be detected which is why you need to put together a clear set of rules and guidelines for capturing, recording, and sharing knowledge within your business.
• Absence of Efficient Knowledge Capturing Methods: To use knowledge management effectively, you will need to define the methods you will use to capture the said knowledge. It’s not enough to simply find it – you should also be able to capture it, store it, process it, analyze it, and share it. To do this, you will need to consider the budget, tools, and training necessary to execute your knowledge management strategy.
• Choosing and Integrating Knowledge Management Tech: One challenge you might not expect is choosing and integrating appropriate knowledge management tech. As mentioned above, you will need to have the right tools to execute your knowledge management strategy. If you have a tight budget, you will need to carefully consider it before you decide on any particular tech you choose to use for your knowledge management.
• Motivating Employees to Use Knowledge Management: While you might not expect it, you might get some pushback from your employees when you start trying to integrate knowledge management into your company. This is why you need to explain why your business needs knowledge management and then start nurturing a corporate culture that values knowledge above all else.

Final Thoughts

To sum up, knowledge management definitely has many benefits, but it needs to be applied correctly. If you misuse knowledge management, it could end up harming your business instead of helping it succeed. Therefore, use the tips in this article to aid you with your knowledge management strategy.

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Introduction

The use of a Knowledge Management system (KMS) has been prevalent for some time; however, it's not been long since technological advancements have changed the face of customer service and how it is perceived. 

With innovations in the branches of AI, Knowledge Management Systems have become an integral part of customer service. Technology has made the retrieval of meaningful and crucial data instant, with knowledge bases (KB) now being used extensively throughout the world across all major industries. They add incredible benefits to the existing framework and long-term benefits to customer experience and satisfaction scores. 

Knowledge management software works as a knowledge directory for agents and customers, storing and managing information to allow brands to digitally implement and enhance their business strategies. It quickly conceptualizes, collects, analyses, and displays data, improving overall business efficiency and expanding opportunities in customer experience. KMS enables the stabilization of data creation and information findability for empowering support agents.

Top contact center challenges

Companies also face difficulties in running a contact center efficiently. Maintaining a healthy Customer Satisfaction (C-SAT) score is vital for long-term growth and development. Let's take a glance at some of the problems faced by call centers:

· Hybrid working model:

Agents have primarily been working from home during the pandemic. Companies are trying new ways to find a progressive balance and provide remote agents with the necessary infrastructure and technology to help make their tasks easier. Moreover, these technologies are helping in streamlining employee productivity tracking for BPO. 

· Accurate and Easy Information:

Customers often get frustrated with resolutions that are vague and difficult to follow. In-accurate information could also reduce efficiency for agents and reduce the customer experience.

· Scalability:

A sudden rise in incoming calls due to external factors could become a significant problem for small call centers. Longer wait times are one of the primary concerns for brands, and it negatively impacts the customer experience.

The scope of knowledge management

A Knowledge Management system reforms customer service through multiple approaches. A sound Knowledge Management system must cover the following elements in its scope:

· Decision Trees:

Decision trees help in creating guided interactive workflows for quick and accurate resolutions. Decision Trees can help agents derive the most accurate solution without going through a large amount of text. 

· How To Guides:

How-to Guides are used extensively in self-service. They give a step-by-step approach to troubleshoot issues. How-to guides are used anywhere from setting up a new service to troubleshooting an issue.

· Knowledge Base:

A Knowledge Base is a searchable repository for agents and customers with in-depth information about the product/service. A well-developed Knowledge Base could substantially improve Average hold and resolution times.

· Self-service Modules:

Self-service modules help set up a support page, train bots, and enhance the in-app support to handle large volumes at call centers. 

· Learning & Quiz Management:

Knowledge Management systems also offer to send regular brand updates and keeping the customers engaged with texts, e-mails, videos and also help run assessments to figure out employee and agent knowledge.

· Visual Assistance:

Visual Assistance is driven by Augmented Reality and is a unique way to transform customer experience digitally. Visual Assistance offers a contactless way to engage with customers and is widely appreciated as a benchmark for solid customer experience. 

· AI-Bots:

Bots could be of radical help in managing redundant queries and issues. They are slowly taking over manual tasks and are starting to learn to solve more complex problems. AI is still in its early phase, but bots are the future of customer service, and minimal human intervention is expected in the time to come.

Benefits of using an AI-powered KM

Incredible development in Artificial Intelligence and its branches in Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing has made it easier for call centers to resolve more straightforward queries that are repetitive, quickly. 

An AI-powered KM could substantially reduce the load of an agent who might focus on more complex tickets. AI can also efficiently hold the history and context of a conversation, enabling an omnichannel experience for customers across any platform they choose to interact with. 

AI-powered Knowledge management systems can smartly update the Knowledge Base regularly and help remove useless data. It can also simplify solutions with the help of predictive capabilities.

Conclusion

The way customers interact with brands has changed drastically over the years. Customers expect more self-service and unique ways to solve their issues with a preference for personalization and quick resolutions. AI-powered knowledge base efficiently delivers quick and accurate solutions. It can easily understand the context, studies behaviors, and offers a personalized and customer experience to users. 

An omnichannel Knowledge Management system provides consistent information across all channels and acts as a single source of truth. It can speed up your access to information, deliver instant actionable answers, help in faster onboarding and learning, and supercharge a brand's self-service.

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Data analytics and knowledge management (KM) are two integral elements of modern business. We depend on big data to inform our business practices and customer needs, and we need KM to cultivate an environment of transparency and insights. By using the best of evolving data strategies, you can streamline knowledge management to produce actionable information that improves business efficiency.

However, managing knowledge with data effectively isn’t always simple. The more data analysis strategies advance, the more complicated they can get. Start by exploring these changes and their impacts, then integrate these evolved strategies into your KM system.

Evolving Data Strategies and Their Impact

Knowledge management never stays the same. The amount of information you need to juggle and make visible to your organization is influenced by rapidly changing digital platforms and data sources. Without a comprehensive understanding of the latest data trends, you’ll run into problems deciphering solutions for operational efficiency.

This is especially the case when dealing with an overabundance of data. These days, massive amounts of data are collected and cycled through data processing software or stored as raw data on internal networks, never to be utilized to their full potential. To maximize the effectiveness of the data you assemble, you need to apply modern data management strategies.

Data management, as opposed to knowledge management, focuses specifically on the administrative challenge of organizing and controlling data resources. This is only one aspect of a larger KM strategy, but an essential one since most of the knowledge you store will likely revolve around data utilization. Evolving strategies in data storage can complicate matters.

Here are some of the modern data developments that are impacting the world of KM:

●      Data storage is moving to cloud systems and even blockchain technology.

●      Visualization of data through augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR).

●      Artificial intelligence tools for data monitoring, storage, and safekeeping.

These evolutions in data management all carry significant implications for any business’s knowledge approach. For example, AI is streamlining KM by enabling cognitive computing functions that explore huge data sets and connect patterns through powerful deep learning and neural network functions. The result is a living knowledge system that can improve itself.

As data processing methods like these improve, so too will the benefits that knowledge managers can bring to their business. But integrating new data strategies will take work.

Integrating New Data Strategies in Knowledge Management

You can build in the effective use of evolving data strategies into your own KM. The process involves striking a balance between your architecture, analytics, and communication tools, but by streamlining your process with modern features you’ll set yourself and your users up for greater success.

Start with your information architecture and its role in your analytics process. With the right data structure, you can integrate new tools easily and successfully. From there, it’s a matter of getting used to new systems across your organization.

Here are a few tips to help you integrate new data strategies in your KM system:

   1. Centralize your knowledge base on a cloud service. There are good reasons cloud-based data management services are gaining in popularity. With all your information in a single place, you can more easily apply the data service innovations of the modern era.

   2. Find the right knowledge tools. All kinds of comprehensive knowledge base software are out there. Modern offerings include AI-built hubs of information, containing graphics, personalized knowledge article recommendations, and more. Exploring these tools can be an effective way to streamline your own KM.

   3. Implement new visualization experiences. Understanding business data and procedure instructions can be difficult. It helps to have visualization tools. These days, AR and VR technologies are fueling new ways of looking at data and transforming the workplace as a result. Look for ways you can integrate these experiences into your own KM.

   4. Use AI. Far from being the frightening, job-ending technology you might imagine, AI can actually help streamline KM by allowing users to find information through voice, visual, and data searches. The evolution of AI features like Natural Language Processing (NLP) means your users can navigate knowledge with unprecedented convenience.

   5. Involve your whole team. Managing knowledge is a big job. The more voices and perspectives you bring into the process, the better you’ll be able to bring in evolving tech to streamline the experience. Engage your team with discussions and brainstorming sessions to help implement an effective plan.

Streamlining KM through evolving data strategies can make for a simpler and more impactful experience. Such a system can bridge understanding and connect users with better results, building a more transparent and effective business. However, you’ll need a comprehensive view of the tools and features available to you.

After thorough research and a team-generated solution, you’ll be able to apply new data tech to create all new experiences for your knowledge-seeking users. From cloud services to AI functionality, these tools in KM mean better communication, more transparent business, and more actionable insights when it comes to improving your processes.

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Every business is looking for ways to improve its internal policies and management of information. Each team has its team members and each of them comes with a set of values and knowledge that enrich the entire team process. Moreover, if you are active in your domain, you have already implemented some working policies and habits. Team members are probably already exchanging information in a variety of ways, so things are already moving. But how do the entire business and every individual team manage the information they come across or share?

Well, if your business does not have a knowledge management (KM) strategy implemented, building one as soon as possible is important. As the business will slowly grow, its employees will interact with more and more information on the products or services you offer.

At the same time, they will acquire more knowledge. But it is wise to think ahead about what will happen if one of the employees resigns. What happens to the knowledge they have on your business that must be passed on to the people they come in their place? A KM strategy helps you handle and manage efficiently all the knowledge that exists in the company. Here are the best practices for designing an effective KM strategy. 

Aim to Understand the Culture that Already Exists 

Until a KM strategy is built by a company, it has already started being active in its chosen domain. This means that even though you might not have many employees, they are already collaborating and working together. How do they do this? How do they share information and knowledge? It can be through emails, instant messages, Slack, Skype, Trello, or other apps. Are there any weaknesses in this process? Which are the strengths? These are some of the questions you need to ask yourself when trying to understand the culture that has already started to form within the business. It is essential to do this because you can build the entire organizational culture on what already exists. 

This is essential for designing a KM strategy because it has to take into consideration the cultural and organizational elements of your business. One of the roles of KM strategy is to address these weaknesses and hot points that already exist and to minimize them. Writers who write my assignment on organizational culture and management say that even though many of the risks you identify now will come only in the future, having a strategy to solve them is essential. 

Look at the Needs 

A KM strategy should be deeply linked to the organizational goals you have already set. If your business does not have any goals, it would be wise to set some SMART ones. They will help you measure your progress, but also work towards achieving the same things.

Every team that works on some products or services has needs. Your KM strategy should address these needs, especially the ones you think will exist in the future. And more importantly, this strategy should be aligned with the organizational goals. There are many activities you will perform to manage the knowledge within the business and these activities should be aligned with your goals for the future. 

Make Knowledge Sharing a Habit 

One of the most important things when working in a team is to share information and communicate effectively with your team members. In a team, a team member’s tasks could depend on the progress of other team members. Moreover, there can be more experienced members that could teach valuable skills and share essential information with their colleagues.

When everyone is informed and has access to the information they need, it will be easier to do their jobs and be productive. How is this sharing of knowledge already happening in your business? What do team members appreciate the most about the work of another team member? It is important to show everyone in the company the benefits of sharing knowledge. If this process is valued, the business will grow healthily. 

KM Strategy that Considers Knowledge Retention 

Many things need to be included in the KM strategy and one of them is that that addresses knowledge retention. Knowledge exists in many forms, such as documents, tools, apps, and many more. But the ones that acquire and use this knowledge are the employees. It is wise to assume that not all employees will stay with your company forever and many of them will resign sometime in the future. This is one of the natural things that happen in the working market and you need to be prepared for it. The employees that will retire or resign will leave with a lot of essential knowledge that needs to be passed on. So, it is important to understand what is the important knowledge in the organization and how to keep it. Knowledge retention is essential and it should not be left out. 

Understanding the External Relations 

A business is indeed working with its employees to deliver certain products and services. But external collaborators such as customers, other companies, or freelancers are also interacting with you. How is this process going? What knowledge is shared among the two parties? How can your organization or business help another one? External relations are efficient because they can help a business grow tremendously, but they can also help a business assess the knowledge it does not have and find ways to acquire it. 

Ending Note 

Designing an effective KM strategy is not an easy job, but it is a strategy that is much needed in every organization and business. As companies grow from year to year, the policies and processes within the business develop even more. It is essential to have a KM strategy that addresses future risks and needs, underlies how the sharing of information and knowledge is done, and also the organizational culture, goals, and knowledge retention. 

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