۱٫۱ Sampling

China covers a large territory, which can be divided into three parts by longitude: eastern part, central part and western part. Considering of the geographical influence and difference scales of cities, we randomly selected 200 managers at 50 different hospitals from 15 provinces such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Shandong, Hubei, Hunan, Henan, Heilongjiang, Guangxi, Shaanxi, Xinjiang, Sichuan and other provinces and autonomous regions. Among all those provinces, 7 were from eastern part, 6 from central part and 2 from western part.

۱٫۲ Questionnaire Design

Considering of the actual situation of Chinese hospitals, a questionnaire named “hospital knowledge management implementation status questionnaire” with 22 questions was designed on the basis of literature review and experts appraisal[5-9]. In case that survey objects have different understanding of the concept “hospital knowledge management”, a common and uniform definition was given in the foreword of the questionnaire. Besides, the questionnaire was designed, revised and completed by four experts on management science, two statisticians, and three medical professionals.

۱٫۳ Data Collection

۲۰۰ questionnaires were distributed face to face or online. Twenty paper questionnaires were conducted face to face and 20 of them were returned. 180 internet-based surveys were conducted and 118 of them were returned. 138 valid questionnaires were returned totally (at least 2 questionnaires were collected in each of 50 hospitals) and effective response rate was 69.0%. Data were analyzed by descriptive study via qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis and analytic hierarchy process.