Development, Pilot Evaluation, and Continuous Improvement of a Knowledge Management System in Mental Health and Addictions (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Mental health and addictions care is complex, individualized, and requires coordination across providers and areas of care. Knowledge management is an essential facilitator and common challenge in mental health and addictions services. OBJECTIVE To describe the development, pilot implementation results, and continuous improvement actions for a Knowledge Management System (KMS) in a mental health and addictions program METHODS This project was conducted as a continuous quality improvement initiative and is reported here as a mixed methods case study. Integrated stakeholder engagement was used to scope content and design the information architecture to be implemented using a commercially available knowledge management platform. A group of 30 clinical and administrative staff was trained and tested the KMS over a period of 10 weeks. Feedback was collected via surveys and focus groups. System analytics were used to characterize engagement. KMS content, design, and full-scale implementation planning were refined based on results RESULTS Satisfaction with the ability to access most types of content (e.g., materials to use in session with clients, clinical learning materials, information about community organizations) was low at baseline and increased over the 10-week pilot evaluation. At the end of the trial, most testers indicated that they would definitely (79%) or probably (13%) recommend the KMS to a colleague. Satisfaction with functionalities were high (ranging from 67% saving time finding information to 82% quality content and ease of use). In terms of usage, approximately 40% of testers were active each week, and testers were active a median of 4 days total over the course of the pilot (range 1-17 days). Activity was highest in the second week and decreased over the pilot. Themes in qualitative feedback identified the KMS as a solution to previous cumbersome methods of data management, offered reliable and vetted content, and was intuitive and easy to use. Improving ease of access (e.g., icon on desktop), adding relevant content, and encouraging use of the KMS by eliminating other methods were key implementation themes. Based on these results, KMS content and design were refined (e.g., adding additional content, refining the folder structure). Refinements were made to program-wide implementation planning including more distributed practice, support from team-specific Champions, plan to remove current sources of access, and integrating with organizational sign on. CONCLUSIONS Knowledge management is an on-going need in mental health and addictions services, and knowledge management systems hold promise in addressing this need. Testers in one mental health and addictions program found a knowledge management system easy to use and would recommend it to colleagues. Opportunities to improve implementation and increase uptake were identified. Future research is needed to understand the impact of knowledge management systems on quality of care and organizational efficiency.