Patient records as inadequate knowledge sharing tool |
‘Patients are responsible to deliver their own medical records. Patient records have always been kept as classified documents, which are stored in the hospital archive. Before referral, patients can file formal application to photocopy their own records. It does not mean that you can photocopy everything [in the records]. The records are reviewed by the archive manager and can only be photocopied and prepared by one of the archive secretaries. Finally, the patient records need to be reviewed by the hospital management department and then marked with a hospital official stamp’. (1, p. 278) |
Absence of communicating HIS between hospitals |
‘The development of HIS in the hospital is solely sponsored and funded by the hospital management. [Therefore,] interconnections [between hospitals] clearly are not their priorities’. (8, p. 74) |
Referral note as inadequate knowledge sharing tool |
‘Usually doctors are not required to write a lot on a referral note, usually a sentence, no more than a paragraph’. (2, p. 108) |
Absence of mechanism for informal KS |
‘We usually communicate through telephone, before patient transfer. It is a personal communication channel, so that we do not record this. But the communication is rich, we can talk about anything about the patient. Sometimes we use email and Wechat [a Chinese smartphone instant messaging app] to send over CT and MRI images’. (1, p. 110) |