Risk information management resource (RIMR) modeling an approach to defending against military medical information assurance brain drain

As Military Medical Information Assurance organizations face off with modem pressures to downsize and outsource, they battle with losing knowledgeable people who leave and take with them what they know. This knowledge is increasingly being recognized as an important resource and organizations are now taking steps to manage it. In addition,, as the pressures for globalization (Castells, 1998) increase, collaboration and cooperation are becoming more distributed and international. Knowledge sharing in a distributed international environment is becoming an essential part of Knowledge Management. This is a major shortfall in the current approach to capturing and sharing knowledge in Military Medical Information Assurance. This paper addresses this challenge by exploring Risk Information Management Resource (RIMR) as a tool for sharing knowledge using the concept of Communities of Practice. RIMR is based no the framework of sharing and using knowledge. This concept is done through three major components-people, process and technology. The people aspect enables remote collaboration, support communities of practice, reward and recognize knowledge sharing while encouraging storytelling. The process aspect enhances knowledge capture and manages information. While the technology aspect enhance system integration and data mining, it also utilizes intelligent agents and exploits expert systems. These coupled with supporting activities of education and training, technology infrastructure and information security enables effective information assurance collaboration.