Factors that affect knowledge sharing behaviours in the medical imaging departments at cancer centres: Systematic Review (Preprint)

Abstract

Knowledge management has a significant role in healthcare institutions. It consists of four processes: knowledge creation, knowledge capture, knowledge sharing, and knowledge application. The success of healthcare institutions relies on effective knowledge sharing among healthcare professionals so the facilitators and barriers to knowledge sharing must be identified and understood. Medical imaging departments play a key role in cancer centres. Therefore, it requires understanding of the factors that affect knowledge sharing in medical imaging departments should be sought in order to increase patient outcomes and reduce medical errors.

The purpose of this systematic review is to identify the facilitators and barriers that affect knowledge sharing behaviours in medical imaging departments and to identify the differences between medical imaging departments in general hospital versus cancer centres.

We performed a systematic search in the PubMed central, EbScohost (CINAHL), Ovid (Medline), Ovid (Embase), Elsevier (Scopus), ProQuest, and Clarivate (Web of Science) in December 2021. Relevant articles were identified by examining the titles and abstracts. Two reviewers independently screened the full text of relevant papers according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. We included qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods studies that investigated the facilitators and barriers that affect knowledge sharing. We used the Mixed Method Appraisal Tool (MMAT) to assess the quality of the included articles and narrative synthesis to report the results.

A total of 49 articles were selected for the full in-depth analysis, and 38 studies were included in the final review with one article added from other selected databases. There were 31 facilitators and 10 barriers identified that affected knowledge sharing practices in medical imaging departments. These facilitators were divided according to their characteristics into three categories: individual, departmental, and technological facilitators. Whereas the barriers that hinder knowledge sharing were divided into four categories: financial, administrative, technological, and geographical barriers.

This review highlighted the factors that influenced the knowledge sharing practices in medical imaging departments in cancer centres and in general hospitals. In terms of the facilitators and barriers to knowledge sharing, this study shows that those facilitators and barriers are the same whether in medical imaging departments in general hospitals or in cancer centres. Our findings can be used as guidelines in the medical imaging departments to support knowledge sharing frameworks and enhance knowledge sharing by understanding the facilitators and barriers.