Information management (IM) is the appropriate and optimized capture, storage, retrieval, and use of information. It may be personal information management or organizational. Information Management for organizations concerns a cycle of organizational activity: the acquisition of information from one or more sources, the custodianship and the distribution of that information to those who need it, and its ultimate disposal through archiving or deletion and extraction.
This cycle of information organisation involves a variety of stakeholders, including those who are responsible for assuring the quality, accessibility and utility of acquired information; those who are responsible for its safe storage and disposal; and those who need it for decision making. Stakeholders might have rights to originate, change, distribute or delete information according to organisational information management policies.
Information management embraces all the generic concepts of management, including the planning, organizing, structuring, processing, controlling, evaluation and reporting of information activities, all of which is needed in order to meet the needs of those with organisational roles or functions that depend on information. These generic concepts allow the information to be presented to the audience or the correct group of people. After individuals are able to put that information to use, it then gains more value.
In the transitional period leading up to the strategic view of information management, Venkatraman, a strong advocate of this transition and transformation,[5] proffered a simple arrangement of ideas that succinctly brought together the management of data, information, and knowledge (see the figure) argued that:
This is often referred to as the DIKAR model: Data, Information, Knowledge, Action and Result,[6] it gives a strong clue as to the layers involved in aligning technology and organisational strategies, and it can be seen as a pivotal moment in changing attitudes to information management. The recognition that information management is an investment that must deliver meaningful results is important to all modern organisations that depend on information and good decision-making for their success.[7]
In addition to the organisational factors mentioned by March and Simon, there are other issues that stem from economic and environmental dynamics. There is the cost of collecting and evaluating the information needed to take a decision, including the time and effort required.[11] The transaction cost associated with information processes can be high. In particular, established organizational rules and procedures can prevent the taking of the most appropriate decision, leading to sub-optimum outcomes.[12][13] This is an issue that has been presented as a major problem with bureaucratic organizations that lose the economies of strategic change because of entrenched attitudes.[14]
According to the Carnegie Mellon School an organization's ability to process information is at the core of organizational and managerial competency, and an organization's strategies must be designed to improve information processing capability [15] and as information systems that provide that capability became formalised and automated, competencies were severely tested at many levels.[16] It was recognised that organisations needed to be able to learn and adapt in ways that were never so evident before [17] and academics began to organise and publish definitive works concerning the strategic management of information, and information systems.[4][18] Concurrently, the ideas of business process management[19] and knowledge management[20] although much of the optimistic early thinking about business process redesign has since been discredited in the information management literature.[21] In the strategic studies field, it is considered of the highest priority the understanding of the information environment, conceived as the aggregate of individuals, organizations, and systems that collect, process, disseminate, or act on information. This environment consists of three interrelated dimensions which continuously interact with individuals, organizations, and systems. These dimensions are the physical, informational, and cognitive.[22]
Bytheway has collected and organised basic tools and techniques for information management in a single volume.[7] At the heart of his view of information management is a portfolio model that takes account of the surging interest in external sources of information and the need to organise un-structured information external so as to make it useful (see the figure).
Stage 1: Taking advantage of public information: recognise and adopt well-structured external schemes of reference data, such as post codes, weather data, GPS positioning data and travel timetables, exemplified in the personal computing press.[27]
Stage 4: Structuring and archiving: with the large volume of data available from sources such as the social web and from the miniature telemetry systems used in personal health management, new ways to archive and then trawl data for meaningful information. Map-reduce methods, originating from functional programming, are a more recent way of eliciting information from large archival datasets that is becoming interesting to regular businesses that have very large data resources to work with, but it requires advanced multi-processor resources.[30]
Even with full capability and competency within the six knowledge areas, it is argued that things can still go wrong. The problem lies in the migration of ideas and information management value from one area of competency to another. Summarising what Bytheway explains in some detail (and supported by selected secondary references):[37]
Organizations are often confronted with many information management challenges and issues at the operational level, especially when organisational change is engendered. The novelty of new systems architectures and a lack of experience with new styles of information management requires a level of organisational change management that is notoriously difficult to deliver. As a result of a general organisational reluctance to change, to enable new forms of information management, there might be (for example): a shortfall in the requisite resources, a failure to acknowledge new classes of information and the new procedures that use them, a lack of support from senior management leading to a loss of strategic vision, and even political manoeuvring that undermines the operation of the whole organisation.[41] However, the implementation of new forms of information management should normally lead to operational benefits.
In early work, taking an information processing view of organisation design, Jay Galbraith has identified five tactical areas to increase information processing capacity and reduce the need for information processing.[42]
Information, as we know it today, includes both electronic and physical information. The organizational structure must be capable of managing this information throughout the information lifecycle regardless of source or format (data, paper documents, electronic documents, audio, video, etc.) for delivery through multiple channels that may include cell phones and web interfaces.
According to Wikipedia, Information management (IM) is the collection and management of information from one or more sources and the distribution of that information to one or more audiences. This sometimes involves those who have a stake in or a right to that information. Management means the organization of and control over the structure, processing, and delivery of information.
AIIM agrees with this definition. Information, as we know it today, includes both electronic and physical information. The organizational structure must be capable of managing this information throughout the information lifecycle regardless of source or format (data, paper documents, electronic documents, audio, social business, video, etc.) for delivery through multiple channels that may include cell phones and web interfaces. Given these criteria, we can then say that the focus of IM is the ability of organizations to capture, manage, preserve, store and deliver the right information to the right people at the right time.
Information management environments are comprised of legacy information resident in line of business applications, Enterprise Content Management (ECM), Electronic Records Management (ERM), Business Process Management (BPM), Taxonomy and Metadata, Knowledge Management (KM), Web Content Management (WCM), Document Management (DM) and Social Media Governance technology solutions and best practices. Information management requires the adoption and adherence to guiding principles that include:
Information management is a corporate responsibility that needs to be addressed and followed from the uppermost senior levels of management to the front line worker. Organizations must be held and must hold their employees accountable to capture, manage, store, share, preserve, and deliver information appropriately and responsibly. Part of that responsibility lies in training the organization to become familiar with the policies, processes, technologies, and best practices in IM. That training is available through AIIM.
Starting January 1, 2024, certified professionals now have additional avenues to earn CEUs. Discover the expanded options and delve into the details of the new CEU rollover benefit. These new CEU choices bring added value, flexibility, and professional growth opportunities to enhance your certification journey. After carefully considering feedback, CCHIIM voted to defer the implementation of the 40 percent AHIMA and/or Component Association CEU requirement no earlier than January 1, 2025. The decision was made to provide more time to understand the changes and plan accordingly.
Large language models (LLMs) may need a bit of work before widespread adoption in medical coding, but experts say fine-tuning these models is possible and medical coders should prepare now for inevitable shifts in roles and responsibilities. Read more in the Journal of AHIMA and take the corresponding CEU quiz.
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