Balancing technology and physician–patient knowledge through an unlearning context

The Spanish health care system has undergone important changes with regard to the development of new homecare services known as “Hospital in the Home”. This paper investigates the approaches that hospital in the home units (HHUs) have used to update physician/patient knowledge and the technology knowledge of their members and relates them to an unlearning context and improvement in the quality of health services. These relationships are examined through an empirical investigation of 55 doctors and 62 nurses belonging to 44 HHUs. The research findings suggest that the key benefits of an unlearning context in HHUs are clear: it enables them to identify and replace poor practices and also avoids the reinvention of the wheel; it enables cost reduction by minimizing unnecessary work caused by the use of poor methods; and it enables improvements in services to patients.

Research highlights▶ The technology knowledge has a positive effect on the unlearning context. ▶ The physician–patient knowledge has a positive effect on the unlearning context. ▶ It is through an unlearning context that members of an HHU will identify outdated systems (for example: procedures, structural and cultural artefacts) by introducing new approaches and result in better quality of health services.