Shared Knowledge is Powerful

According to Dictionary.com, “knowledge is power” (attributed to Francis Bacon) means that “the more one knows, the more one will be able to control events.” If we’ve learned anything from COVID-19, it is that shared knowledge is power. From its inception in China, to the spread throughout the United States, information regarding COVID-19 has been dangerously mishandled to say the least. Pertinent questions concerning US preparedness, testing, and PPE remain unanswered. The medical community is still determining the ways that the virus is transmitted, how it presents in the body, how it can be treated/cured, and the resulting ramifications post a negative COVID-19 diagnosis. As we wade through this pandemic, we see firsthand how critical it is that we share knowledge on every level: country, federal, state, local, and to/from and within the medical community; otherwise, barriers to the flow of knowledge can have detrimental outcomes. “Knowledge is power” only when given to people who have the ability to do something with it. Knowledge Management enables organizations to make the fundamental shift from “who needs to know?” to “who doesn’t know?” Thus, enabling knowledge to be free-flowing rather than siloed and restricted.