European, Mediterranean & Middle Eastern Conference on Information Systems 2010 (EMCIS2010) April 12-13 2010, Abu Dhabi, UAE Anjum Razzaque and Akram Jala-Karim. Knowledge Management facilitates Electronic Health Records to improve Quality of Healthcare 1 THE INFLUENCE OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT ON EHR TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF HEALTHCARE SERVICES Anjum Razzaque, School of Management, School of Management, New York Institute of Technology, Adliya, Kingdom of Bahrain arazza01@nyit.edu Akram Jalal-Karim, College of Business and Finance, Department of Management Information Systems, Ahlia University, Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain ajalal@ahliauniversity.edu.bh Abstract – Background & Purpose: The healthcare (HC) sector, globally, invests huge amounts of funds in an attempt to attain international quality standards but the structure and content barriers make the electronic patient records (EPRs) and electronic health record (EHRs) fall short. This study seeks to illuminate theories and practices of HC knowledge management (KM) so this process can facilitate the narrowing of EPR and EHR gap, that ultimately will cascade to improving the HC quality which is therefore assessable by the quality management system (QMS) model. Design/methodology/approach: This research is theoretical in nature. It examines relevant theories and reviews literature on (1) HC quality assessment and tools, (2) HC KM, (3) EPRs and EHRs, (4) knowledge representation and (5) the Symantec web. This study passed through phases of research. In the first phase, EPR and EHR were researched to analyze why they fall short in facilitating the HC’s initiative to improve quality. Next, HC KM was studied to analyze and establish a viable link between (1) EPR and EHR and (2) KM. Technologies and techniques like the Symantec web and Knowledge Representation were also analyzed to make the facilitation of HC KM possible. Findings: The findings indicate that, by this paper contributing a conceptual, integrative, and strategically viable HC KM facilitator model for EPRs and EHRs, this paper answers its research question that HC KM can facilitate EPR and EHR to improve HC quality. Research limitations/implications, Originality & Value: This research provides an integrated and a conceptual model grounded in theory. This model needs to be tested in a real or simulated HC environments. This paper is one of the first studies to solve the barriers of EPR and EHR using KM. Keywords: Electronic Patient Record, Electronic Health Record, Electronic Medical Record, Healthcare Knowledge Management, Knowledge Representation, Symantec Web, Quality Management System, Knowledge Management facilitator model. 1 INTRODUCTION With countries worldwide spending ample funds in their HC industries, it comes to no surprise that such a complex service-oriented industry suffers in quality; due to medical errors (besides other reasons). Therefore such countries experience a rise in HC costs and hence dissatisfied patient (A Research Center of the University of Sheffield and CITY Liberal