Integrating e-commerce and knowledge management-what does the Kaiser experience really telll us

The growth of e-commerce (electronic commerce) is vast, complex and rapidly expanding. E-commerce is clearly an integral part of business, spreading across the areas of Business to Consumer, Business to Business, e-government and e-health. In fact, we could be forgiven for thinking we are in the e-millennium. E-medical record is an example of one such e-initiative to touch the health care sector. However, the true advantages of these e-medical records are not clear. We present the case example of medical automated record system (MARS), the automated medical record system at Kaiser Permanente-Ohio. In so doing, we show that the true advantage of this system is that it functions as a knowledge management system (KMS) simultaneously enabling and facilitating convergence and compliance of health care treatment, as well as enhancing and supporting the creation and renewal of knowledge pertaining to health care delivery. This demonstrates the importance of integrating a knowledge management focus in many e-commerce initiatives and we conclude by outlining the implications of such a focus for all organisations trying to increase their customer moment of value.