Knowledge management prerequisites for building an information society in healthcare

• Published in: International journal of medical informatics (Shannon, Ireland) Vol. 75; no. 3; pp. 322 - 329
• Main Author: Kisilowska, Malgorzata
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Ireland Elsevier Ireland Ltd 01.03.2006
• Subjects: Artificial Intelligence; Biomedical Research - organization & administration; Database Management Systems; Databases, Factual; European Union; Health Care Sector - organization & administration; Health information; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Information; Information Storage and Retrieval - methods; Information system; Medical information; Medical Records Systems, Computerized - organization & administration; Natural Language Processing; Information system; Information; Medical information; Health information
• ISSN: 1386-5056; 1872-8243
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2005.08.004

The European Research Area requires either technological development or information literacy of health professionals. This information literacy shall be understood much deeper and broader than a basic preparation to use ICT tools in everyday life only. The author's first aim is to present the literature review and analysis of different definition of the “information” concept in Polish and foreign sources for health sciences, to emphasize a problem fundamental for an information society development, i.e. lack of adequate “information” understanding. Health professionals’ information literacy shall also build an awareness of conceptual differences among numerous classifications, thesauruses, and information-retrieval languages, which result in different information received in a retrieval process. This problem can be of crucial effect for either health research or practice. Understanding the problem shall mobilize the researchers, classifiers, and indexers to co-ordinate efforts aimed in organizing “a translator” covering the most popular classifications’ and thesauruses’ concepts, to make an international research co-operation easier, relevant, and safe for the patients.