Informal Knowledge Management Tools
What other tools complement PHIMS and why are they important?
The time we spent following practitioners in LHDs around as they went about their daily work gave us the chance to see how many different kinds of extra tools for recording data have grown up around PHIMS.
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Functions of Informal knowledge Management Tools
These were everywhere and really interesting to observe, because they show all the important functions of knowledge exchange in practice (what you tell each other, what you record in PHIMS, what you think is the most important etc).
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Hover over each function to read the quotes that tell the story
Track KPI status of each site:
"[name] shows me the Excel spreadsheet that she’s been working on from the PHIMS drill down report she downloaded yesterday. She still has to do a lot of work preparing the Excel spreadsheet to give her the information that she wants. She is trying to find out how the sites are doing on two specific practices so they can figure out who to target in the next round of incentive grants. Last time, they only targeted schools that weren’t meeting 80% of KPIs – so as to help get the LHD over their KPI targets. "
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Collect contextual information about sites progress towards targets:
In [a] spreadsheet, name enters some info on the service she just visited, such as “have a great healthy eating program” – this is so she has “a bit more context” when she calls them next time “we wouldn’t put this kind of information into PHIMS all the time”.
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Tracking LHD-level targets in addition to state-level targets:
"She opens a huge master spreadsheet of all of the schools. Here they record detail including the same scoring that goes into PHIMS. The reason they keep the scores in two places is that PHIMS doesn’t allow them to drill down into the details of the low-performing schools. This LHD has an equity framework that they use to prioritize the sites…"
1.Monitoring progress towards target achievement
[Name] says that if she is doing a phone follow-up she will get out the paper file because it is good to know what they are like if she is going to be having a phone conversation. That way she will know if they are “friendly” or whether they are “open” – so if someone is not open to changing the milk KPI, [name] will put that in the paper file and then if she goes to call them
Capturing subjective impressions and details of relationships with contacts:
[Name] says that if she is doing a phone follow-up she will get out the paper file because it is good to know what they are like if she is going to be having a phone conversation. That way she will know if they are “friendly” or whether they are “open” – so if someone is not open to changing the milk KPI, [name] will put that in the paper file and then if she goes to call them"
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Processing experiences with contacts:
[name] says, “you can’t really track things in terms of comments on PHIMS. You can track the numbers” which is why on paper “it’s like a venting thing, I think, writing it on there. That’s where I feel like it’s safe to write if they were rude or something like that. Not that it benefits anything at all… it’s probably the most personal part.”
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Keep detailed records of interaction with contacts: [Name] shows me that she keeps a list of all staff and their mail addresses and she will print that out and bring it along, so she can update it if there has been any changes. There is so much turnover in this industry, that she needs to keep track of the changes.
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Keep historical record of relationships with sites & contacts:
[name] also has been responsible for updating their school database. They keep a database separate from PHIMS, with all the data they need for their various projects, it goes back more than 10 years.
2.Managing Relationships with Sites
She’s got 3 spreadsheets taped to her wall. Each represents a different team members way of organizing the work. They are all different with different columns, colours, and level of detail. In addition, she has folders for each school where she keeps hard copies of correspondence, checklists, etc.
Planning for deadlines in PHIMS:
She keeps track of due dates of her sites in her own excel file because she will start working on contacting them about a month before the scheduled follow-up date [in PHIMS].
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Critical information available at a glance or close at hand:
He also has prints on the wall with an overview of the sites and his contacts
She’s got 3 spreadsheets taped to her wall. Each represents a different team members way of organizing the work. They are all different with different columns, colours, and level of detail. In addition, she has folders for each school where she keeps hard copies of correspondence, checklists, etc.
3.Time and Task Management
One of the monitors has a small printed list physically attached to the bottom of the screen. The list, she tells me, is a set of bullet points to guide what she should note in PHIMS following a site visit.
Copies of data is kept to safeguard against losses in PHIMS:
“I don't think PHIMS is going to open, which is a bit inconvenient. I can show you the last month's report but I can’t show you exactly how I extracted it…it’s
literally because the limitations of PHIMS mean that we still need to maintain some other information off of PHIMS so I still don't really know the best way of doing it. I think each Health Promotion Officer does it differently.”
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Potential for “measurement error” in keeping multiple systems:
I ask [Name removed] if she has other systems to record data, and she tells me, “[name] a spreadsheet queen, that’s my gripe with her. Everything’s recorded in about 7 different places [this is said as a platitude]. Which irritating because to me I just see measurement error. Like, screaming at me because sometimes you forget to put it there or you miss it there and then it gets transferred or someone saves it incorrectly. But she, I think it stems because PHIMS came in a few years ago and had a lot of teething problems and they kept missing or losing data.”
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Templates to facilitate accuracy and consistency of data entered into PHIMS:
One of the monitors has a small printed list physically attached to the bottom of the screen. The list, she tells me, is a set of bullet points to guide what she should note in PHIMS following a site visit.
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4.Coordinating Data and Team Work
Let us know!
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What do you
think?
What are the implications for modifying PHIMS? Could changes make things easier?
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Will it always make sense to keep some information for local use only? Which types of information?
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Are there other functions for informal tools that we might have missed?