Challenges to Implementing IT Support for Evidence Based Practice Among Nurses and Assistant Nurses: A Qualitative Study

When practitioners make decisions as well as treat and care for patients they interpret patient specific information according to evidence based medical knowledge. This process is complex as evidence is infrequently available in a form that can be acted upon at the time decisions must be made. The aim of this paper is to (1) explore how primary, secondary and municipality care in Sweden work with the process of managing knowledge, (2) explore how nurses and assistant nurses experience availability of medical knowledge when and where they need it and (3) conditions for developing a coherent IT-based knowledge portal for different areas of knowledge bases in healthcare. The results show significant deficiencies in the knowledge management process of the participating organizations. The knowledge management processes are not embedded in business processes, activities and relationships, which cause major difficulties for practitioners to keep up with the latest medical evidence.