Grading Key★★★★★ = outstanding; ★★★★ = excellent; ★★★ = good;★★ = fair; ★ = poor.

Book Review

© 2007 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research

For personal use. Mass reproduce only with permission from Mayo Clinic Proceedings.For personal use. Mass reproduce only with permission from Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Healthcare Knowledge Management: Issues, Advances,and Successes, edited by Rajeev K. Bali and Ashish N.Dwivedi, 280 pp, with illus, $74.95, New York, NY,Springer (telephone: 800-777-4643), 2007, ISBN 0-387-33540-4

Type and Scope of Book: A multiauthored collection ofreview articles from an international perspective.Contents: In 17 chapters and an insightful preface, thismost recent contribution in a high-profile Springer-Verlagseries on Health Informatics assembles an internationalcollection of high-level reviews on knowledge manage-ment sociology, methods, and practices. Readers expectinga technical, computer-science–oriented perspective on thistopic will be disappointed. However, those looking for apragmatically driven, state-of-the-art description of knowl-edge management practices in the United Kingdom,Singapore, the United States, Canada, and Mexico will findinteresting contrasts and scholarly overviews of processmanagement issues and sociology, along with some histori-cal perspectives. Most chapters are comprised of shortessays on their focused areas; they are not a basis fordeveloping health knowledge management locally.Strengths: This is a scholarly and international assemblagewith excellent review and overview material.Deficiencies: The faculty for the most part are quite junior,and the discussions almost too high level for application ina practical context.Recommended Readership: Students of health knowledgemanagement would find the overviews and cultural contextvery valuable. Clinicians and clinical information manag-ers may be disappointed.Overall Grading: ��

Christopher G. Chute, MD, DrPH, Division of BiomedicalInformatics, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn