Integrated Framework of Knowledge Discovery and Knowledge Management for E-health In Saudi Arabia: Supporting Citizens with Diabetes Mellitus

Saudi Arabia experiences insufficient effort in terms of patients’ education in relation to a
number of prevalent diseases, including diabetes mellitus, musculoskeletal disorders and
upper respiratory tract infections. In addition, the number of studies related to e-health
initiatives to support patients in the Kingdom are limited and only benefit patients of a few
hospitals. This situation leads to deficient application of self-management and education
strategies to empower patients to manage their diseases. Unfortunately, such a deficiency can affect the health status in the Kingdom negatively as diabetes mellitus is reported as the first cause of death in the Kingdom among all other prevalent diseases.
Although knowledge management has been proven to be a valuable approach to sharing
knowledge and educating users to manage their illnesses, it has not been implemented
appropriately to support the increasing number of diabetic citizens in Saudi Arabia. In this
research, knowledge management is integrated with knowledge discovery to support specific
needs of the diabetic community in the Kingdom. Such an integration constitutes an e-health
initiative to support diabetic citizens and healthcare professionals to manage this expanding
illness in Saudi Arabia. Knowledge discovery is implemented through data mining to elicit
useful knowledge related to specific diabetes complications encountered by diabetic citizens
in the Kingdom. The integrated framework applies the SECI model to capture and
disseminate useful diabetes self-management and educational expertise to support the
management of diabetes complications.
This integrated approach to knowledge management and knowledge discovery has provided
a valuable tool implemented in terms of a web portal. This has facilitated the exchange and
dissemination of tacit and explicit knowledge of the diabetic community in the forms of
strategies, guidelines and best practices. It has also overcome the issues faced by the
organisational and national cultures affecting knowledge management practice in Saudi
Arabia.