refore, raises legitimate concerns about the privacy of such information. "At the same time, medical data have enormous value to researchers and health care providers, offering insight for the epidemiologist and quantitative assessment of health care effectiveness" (Rotenberg, 1995, p. 1). Knowledge managers, thus, must balance patient privacy concerns with legitimate needs of the health care organization.
Knowledge management involving the application of information technology, "is a growth field in today's" health care sector, "so much so that facilities that don't grow with it put their survival at risk. Increased pressures from payment sources, government and management for more information make information systems mandatory" for hospitals and other health care institutions (Oatway, 1997, p. 20).
Knowledge management systems integrated with information technology within a hospital organization can help "care providers plan care, document it and provide sound information to administration for decision-making. Computer systems are increasingly necessary to bill for services. And the integration of these clinical and administrative functions is" becoming a necessity (Oatway, 1997, p. 20).
The application of knowledge management by health care provider organizations through networks "allows information and resources to be shared by all elements of an institution. A network can be anything from a simple link between two computers in an office to a complex installation joining thousands of computers at many sites around the world." (Lee & Miliman, 1995, p. 1013). While the sharing of patient-specific information can improve both efficiency and the quality of care, such sharing also can open a Pandora's box of breeches of patient confidentiality. "The increasingly prominent issue of how to protect the confidentiality of medical records in an age when such information is available to more and more people by electronic means...