Information brokerage in hospital facilities management: a social network perspective

Abstract

This research investigates the information brokerage role of facilities managers in hospital organisations. It is based on the premise that facilities managers perform ‘strategic brokerage’ of information to connect different non-clinical facilities management (FM) support services. While challenges of coordinating and integrating different functional FM services within a hospital are well understood, information brokerage remains inadequately addressed and explained. Specifically, how non-clinical information is managed and brokered between different sets of functional FM relationships is unclear. This case study research adopts a social network perspective within a critical realist methodology to explain communication networks within FM operations inside a tertiary hospital. The results indicate that when communication exchanges between different non-clinical functional support units are identified and mapped, information brokerage activities can be detected. It is concluded that there are different types of brokerage opportunities and that information brokerage helps to identify inter-disciplinary opportunities between different non-clinical support functions within a hospital. This increases the strategic influence for an FM function by exposing significant untapped value in the delivery of health-care services.