Meet the Special Library: The Wacker Knowledge Center
by Judy Jaffe, jjaffe@rmf.harvard.edu 

CRICO/RMF, Risk Management Foundation of the Harvard Medical Institutions, is the patient safety and medical malpractice company owned by and serving the Harvard medical community of nearly 10,000 physicians, 18 hospitals, and 227 other health care organizations. The Wacker Knowledge Center provides information services to about 125 employees from across all departments, with the most requests coming from senior management, loss prevention and patient safety, claims, and communications staff members.

I joined CRICO/RMF in October 2004 in the newly-created position of Knowledge Librarian with the specific responsibility to design a knowledge management (KM) structure for the organization to manage its intellectual capital. At that time, the company did not have a library, but rather a "room with some books," as one person remarked.

My findings from an initial needs assessment revealed a common scenario: most staff members had their own filing systems (both paper and electronic); they had trouble finding documents; and they frequently had to re-invent the wheel. There was a concern that the knowledge employees carried around in their heads would leave the company when they did.

Building on this information, my first project was to design a digital library to centralize access to the most-needed internal documents, e-journals, and Internet resources. I collaborated with two other staff members who had company content development experience and web-based technology skills, and we launched the digital library in August 2005. We promoted this KM tool through the company's newsletter and group presentations, encouraging staff to share their resources. Our digital library is truly dynamic as we continue to identify, capture, and organize, and publish information.

Entering a company in a newly-created position is both challenging and rewarding. I am fortunate to have KM champions in senior management, and the success of the digital library has earned support for other initiatives. I am now the Knowledge Manager; my two digital library collaborators have joined the KM Team. Alice Fritz is the KM Content Developer and Wallinda Hutson is the KM Senior Interface Designer. Both are hybrid positions requiring knowledge of patient safety and medical malpractice insurance, as well as technology skills.

The KM Team has aligned its mission with that of the company: Harvard hospitals will be the safest place in the world to receive and deliver health care. KM is service-oriented, providing information support to enhance the education, research, and service activities of CRICO/RMF. In my 22 months with the organization, the KM Team has implemented and maintains the following services and products:

§ Research and Reference Services
§ Document Delivery
§ Serials Management
§ Daily email patient safety and medical malpractice news updates
§ Email alerts of new relevant journal articles
§ Personal Desktop Dashboards of customized information resources
§ Database Searching and Research Skills Training

But whatever happened to the "room with some books"? Through an expansion project, it has become our new Knowledge Center, officially dedicated this past June in honor of Dr. Warren and Ann Wacker. Dr. Wacker, one of the CRICO founding investors, has been a mentor and teacher to countless staff members over the years.

The Wacker Knowledge Center serves as the core of CRICO/RMF's efforts to share and disseminate information and to foster learning. The physical space not only houses a collection of books and journals on clinical medicine in addition to the legal and insurance aspects of medical malpractice. It also has a growing collection of multimedia materials and anatomical models.

The Knowledge Center incorporates technology and space to create an environment for research, study, and organizational learning. For example, our conference area is an inviting place for small discussions and the table is wired to accommodate laptops for those who need to work with the resources nearby. An automated screen drops from the ceiling when needed for presentations. A computer station nook provides a quiet retreat from busy cubicle workspace where users can come to write, improve their search skills, or perform supervised research.

But the Knowledge Center contains more than the 500 books and 70 journal titles enclosed within its walls. It is the symbolic gateway to the many information services the KM Team provides.

Recently, we introduced two KM programs to foster the knowledge transfer among our organization members: Journal Club and Issues & Trends. These open discussions are forums for exchanging ideas, gaining new knowledge, and generating creative solutions to problems that cannot be solved by traditional methods. Both offer opportunities to increase the flow of inter-department knowledge, build consensus, and shape our thinking and direction. The KM Team prepares a bibliography for pre-discussion reading, captures the speaker's presentation and group exchange of tacit knowledge, and publishes all related materials to the digital library.

I am encouraged by our success and look forward to implementing new KM ideas. Some projects on the horizon include podcasting, communities of practice, wikis, robotics, and ultimately, delivery of information on a granular level to physicians at the point of care.