Knowledge Sharing, Control of Care Quality, and Innovation in Intensive Care Nursing

This study investigates the influence of nurse knowledge sharing behavior on nurse innovation, given different conditions of control of care quality within the intensive care unit (ICU). After conducting a number of interviews and a pilot study, we carried out a multi-source survey study of more than 200 nurses employed in 22 ICUs at 17 Danish hospitals. Overall, we find that knowledge sharing among individual ICU nurses has a positive impact on their innovation. Meanwhile, strong control of care quality makes this positive impact less effective. However, different aspects of knowledge sharing affect innovation differently, depending on the strength as well as type of control of care quality within the unit. Healthcare organizations face an increasing pressure to innovate while controlling and accounting for care quality. This study demonstrates that the increasing pressures to implement control of care quality and innovate may be conflicting, unless handled properly.