January 19, 2012 | HIPNet - Health Information and Publications Network

Health Information and Publications Network (HIPNet)

Meeting Minutes, January 19, 2012,

1pm-3:30 pm, FHI 360, Washington, DC

1:00 – 1:15 Welcome and Introductions, Laura Raney, FHI 360, HIPNet co-chair and Sherry Hutchinson, Population Council, guest co-chair

1:15 – 2:00 Neil Pakenham-Walsh, coordinator, Health Information for All campaign (HIFA2015). The Health Information for All campaign or HIFA2015 was launched in 2006 to respond to a basic problem: people are dying for lack of basic healthcare knowledge. Barriers in the global healthcare knowledge system lead to lack of relevant, reliable information for healthcare providers in low and middle-income countries. There is a knowledge deficit in health – and there is no guarantee of effective health care, especially if you are poor and dependent on government services. The HIFA2015 campaign aims to improve the availability and use of healthcare information in developing countries. It provides an enable environment for those working in knowledge sharing to interact with its three-part strategy:

Communication through the HIFA2015 forum which bringing together a critical mass of change agents (policy makers, researchers, publishers, librarians, informaticians, health professionals and others) committed to achieve the HIFA2015 goal:“Every person worldwide will have access to an informed health provider.”

Understanding through the HIFA2015 Knowledge Base that harnesses the experience and expertise shown on the HIFA2015 Forum to build an evolving picture of information needs of different groups of healthcare providers in different contexts, and how to meet those needs. These HIFA “lumps” from discussion groups are being gathered by topic. Recently the WHO asked HIFA for input into its guidelines on traditional birth attendants.

Advocacy through the HIFA2015 Advocacy Program which apply the evidence of the HIFA2015 Knowledge Base plus international human rights law to persuade governments, funding agencies and the international community to invest in cost-effective health information services.

The HIFA2015 forum facilitates large multidisciplinary groups to share experience and to learn. It has experienced a steady growth in membership which now includes 7300 members, the majority of whom of from Africa, then Europe (HIFA2015 is based in London), followed by the Americas and Southeast Asia. The demographics show that most HIFA2015 members are health workers or involved in information delivery, and three quarters work in universities, hospitals or health care facilities, NGOs or government. There are now 130 supporting organizations worldwide, from the founding two in 2006 and give discussion forums in several languages.

An external evaluation report last year funded by the Rockefeller Foundation reported, “HIFA2015 achieves an extraordinary level of activity on minimal resources from which many people around the world benefit…its ultimate success will depend on external funders providing additional funding…” (Note the supporting organizations are not funding organizations.) Beyond 2015, the group will continue to focus on evidence-based information for all focusing on skills, equipment, information, system support, medicine, incentives and communication facilities (mobile phones).

Join today to work to achieve HIFA2015 goal: by 2015, people in worldwide will no longer be dying for lack of knowledge. For more information or to join, see http://www.hifa2015.org/

The methodology for the forums is explained in “Healthcare Information for All by 2015’: a community of purpose facilitated by Reader-Focused Moderation,” Knowledge Management for Development Journal 2007, 3:1. SHORT LINK: bit.ly/hifa2015-35. You can contact Neil at neil@hifa2015.org

Discussion: HIFA lumps. WHO also requested information from HIFA on task shifting from the archives of the HIFA2015 discussion forums from 2006-2011. They were able to look at one year of the forum archive, which entailed picking out the messages and placing them in a database. They welcome collaboration and rely on volunteers who work on a block of time rather than subject and identify all HIFA lumps. This is capturing tacit knowledge that can be complemented with the literature. The data provide the status of the person, the type of organization where s/he works, thus you can also generate quantitative data. A great opportunity for a graduate student looking for thesis material! Or interns.

2:00 – 2:45 David Alexander, Photoshare Manager, K4Health JHU/CCP. David spoke about K4Health’s Photoshare, a leading editorial photography collection highlighting international health programs in action and the people they serve. Photoshare was developed in 2001 and the revised website was rolled out in 2011. Technology has changed, and Photoshare has changed with the times. Slide images have been captured in digital format increasing the collection size, which now includes over 17,000 images. These images are provided free of charge upon request for NGOs and nonprofit organizations. The collection is editorial, not stock, and the use needs to be fair to the original context of programs in action and the people they serve. Over 60 percent of the contributions come from developing countries, whereas about the same number of requesters comes from Washington, DC. The photos cover various topics including HIV/AIDS, family planning, global health, agriculture, development, democracy and governance, water and sanitation. New features include a search interface with 200 images per page, larger browsing topics, pre-formed searches by category, country, date, resolution, vertical or horizontal. Users can create an account, search images, and request images for download. Requests are fulfilled within 24 hours. Please also consider uploading your images! It’s quick and easy and is much appreciated! You can also use the evaluation tools on Photoshare (vs. Fliker) to track use, measure value and impact. http://www.photoshare.org/

2:45 – 3:30 Open discussion. Topics included

Minutes from last meeting’s UnMeeting which focused on social media
Conferences – which ones are coming up, how to choose, and what publications to take
Creative ways to communicate availability of health information products: CDs, flashdrives, QR code, business cards, epublishing including Scribe and Codemantra.
Data visualization tools, including Flip video (topic of next month’s meeting)
HIPNet Library mailing (see below)

3:30 – 4:00 Announcements, updates from members, materials sharing

The annual HIPNet library mailing will take place in the spring, Please be thinking of what print materials and CD-ROMS you would like to send from your organization. We will be sending documents to libraries in developing countries from our mailing list that includes Anglophone, Francophone and Spanish-speaking countries. The shipping rates are discounted from what a single organization can get, and are charged on a per pound basis to your organization. The previous HIPNet library mailing included shipments of 73 different items to 1,088 libraries (597 English, 280 Spanish, and 211 French). The combined cost for shipping nearly 3,000 pounds of materials was $12,000, with a savings of $19,000. If you have questions, please contact Heather Johnson at hjohnson@jhuccp.org

The next HIPNet meeting will be hosted by the Global Health Council (GHC) on March 15 and will focus on low cost video solutions and social media. For meeting suggestions or to volunteer to host a future meeting, please contact Laura Raney (lraney@fhi360.org) or Leah Gordon (leah.gordon@unc.edu), HIPNet co-chairs.

Participants

Name Organization E-mail

Sarah Whitehead KMS swhitehead@kmsgh.org

Willow Gerber MSH wgerber@msh.org

Laura Lartigue MSH llartigue@msh.org

Laura Gustafson MCHIP lgustafson@jhpiego.net

Ashley Rytter CRS Ashley.rytter@crs.org

Josh Tong CRS Joshua.tong@crs.org

Kate Howell URC khowell@urc-chs.com

Benny Kim MEASURE DHS hkim@icfi.com

Angela Nash-Mercardo K4Health/JHUCCP anashme@ghuccp.org

Alisha Horowitz Jhpiego ahorowitz@jhpiego.net