Knowledge Management in the Lifecycle of Clinical Documents

Background Evolved out of the Cancer Institute NSW Act 2003 Cancer Council became a public arm of cancer prevention and patient notification The Institute took on various cancer services such as BreastScreen NSW; Central Cancer Registry (which was at Westmead hospital.) In brief the Institute raises public awareness through prevention campaigns and develops and funds cancer research. We don’t do any of the fund-raising.

How would you know the Institute? (Probably from the scary ads)

Structure: Research and Publications Registries: (Central Cancer Registry, Hereditary Cancer Register and the Screening services such as the Pap Test Register) Used by researchers inside and outside the Institute for: Creating Reports Trending Population Health Information Products – The CIM (Cancer Incidence and Mortality) Report and other publications.

Aims Digitisation of publications Meaningful access points and relevant data (important). Reference formatting for citations (creating a standard and central access area) Measurable research outcomes

Project Overview Compliance to the State Records Act 1998 Access to Published Information (Premier’s Department, 2000, Revised 2006) Scoped for six months Team and the sponsor

Methods National Archives and State Records NSW standards Digitisation and archiving standards Knowledge Management Standard (AS 5037 – 2005) Developing the research group

National Archives and State Records NSW standards For digitising the publications, we manually scanned documents as high resolution image files. These where then converted to documents from an image format for content searching. We wanted the text and graphics to be unprotected so that a local version could be created and cut and paste editing allowed. The integrity of the original documents needed to be protected. The idea was to catalogue these onto the records management system and share them using an intranet, with the eventual aim of public access. Documents required Readability, be secure and portable and have effective meta- tagging

Knowledge Management Methodology Knowledge Management Standard (AS 5037 – 2005) Mapping the Culture – an initial understanding of the environment and processes had been made through a Classification development using DIRKS methodology Knowledge Mapping (“information gathered through focus groups” (AS p.41) aiming to visually represent information products) with Community of Practice elements (shared expertise and interest). The result of this project is direct benefit to the group, it is formed and not a spontaneous or ‘organic’ community.

Knowledge Management Focus Group — Research staff to measure significance of individual topics and value of relationships between the publication material. From the information supplied in the group interviews schematic mapping for the resources was developed as a way of linking reports, research, data and publications. The aim of this mapping was to explore new connections and present the material in a different way (as a map rather than a list.) This map was presented to the research staff to obtain information on the format and presentation of this material.

Access Points The information we got related to: Oncology systems Physiology grouping Author names (groups, committees, joint ventures and institutions) Future projects (certain surveys) Other health issues (ATSI, rural health)

Future Results Short-term: Testing Usability of Access points / Use of publications through surveys - are the search terms & structure relevant & meaningful? - technology compatible and intuitive (eg. footnotes and publications useable with a broad range of software) Use of the Group? - developed information tools & skills - evolve into a different form, or try to keep momentum?

Aspects of narrative management Searching for relevance: One of the problems of records management is holding back the tide of documents. The Institute is in the happy position of having an entirely electronic records system. However we create 35,000+ electronic documents a year. About a third may be original and a third again may be useful. Controlled language helps but we want focus groups and a move from linear searching to create relevance. A way of mapping the corporate history. Explaining roles, publications and areas of expertise.

References Knowledge Management – A Guide (Standards Australia, AS 5037 – 2005) Access to Published Information – Laws, Policy and Guidelines (NSW Premier’s Dept. 2000, revised 2006) Strategies for Documenting Government Business : The DIRKS Manual (State Records 2003, Revised 2007 )