When Expertise Moves from Employees’ Minds to an Institutional System
“Forty years of experience in hospital management… lost in a single moment!”
This is how Dr. Omar, Director of Al-Hayat Hospital Group, described the moment they lost Dr. Khaled, Head of the Operations Department, in a tragic accident.
“Dr. Khaled was a legend in operations management. He knew every detail—from surgery scheduling to emergency management. Everything was in his head, and we relied on him for everything.”
The real problem surfaced after his departure. The department began to struggle. Procedures that once ran smoothly suddenly became complicated. Training programs, safety protocols, coordination with other departments—all of it was tacit knowledge stored in the mind of one person.
“It was a huge shock… how did we allow forty years of experience to be confined to one individual?”
The Journey of Change Began:
Forming a team to interview all department heads and document their expertise
Bringing in a specialist to transform practical experience into structured systems
Creating a digital library to preserve each department’s knowledge
Launching a knowledge-sharing program among employees
“The hard lesson taught us that a hospital cannot rely on ‘heroes’ alone… we need systems that turn every employee’s experience into institutional legacy.”
The Major Transformation:
Creating an electronic ‘Operations Expert’ system
Documenting all medical and administrative procedures
Mandatory training programs for knowledge sharing
A system to document experiences and lessons learned
“Today, when a new employee joins, I don’t tell them ‘ask so-and-so’… I tell them ‘open the system and read the experiences of those who came before you.’”
The Most Important Lesson:
Expertise stored in employees’ minds is temporary wealth… but institutional systems are a lasting legacy.
