Knowledge workers and knowledge-intense organizations, Part 1: A promising framework for nursing and healthcare.

Although some of the models and practices imported from business and industry have dubious or uncomfortable application to healthcare, one of the rapidly emerging paradigms appears to fit nursing and healthcare well. The concept of the knowledge-intense or knowledge work company or firm, staffed primarily by a workforce of knowledge workers, appears to describe the healthcare organization more accurately than the traditional industrial organization model drawn from the production floor or the sales organization.