Health Information and Publications Network (HIPNET) HIPNet HIV/FP Integration Meeting Notes September 24th 2004

Agenda:
Update on partners meeting (Sept. 23-24)
USAID Updates
Update on needs assessment
HIV/FP integration series
OHA Buy-In
Follow-up
Medical Libraries Mailing List
HIPnet – HIF meeting
Next meeting date
Attendance

Update on Partners Meeting:
The Family Planning and HIV/AIDS Integration Working Group at USAID held a 1 ½ day meeting on the 23rd-24th and invited program or M&E; representatives from all CAs. The first day’s agenda included panels on Family Planning and PMTCT/ANC, Family Planning and VCT, and Family Planning and HIV/AIDS Care & Support Programs. The second day included small group breakout sessions on Small group break out sessions on policy and advocacy, service delivery, and research as well as action planning. The group decided to

  • Meet approximately every six months
  • Share all the presentations, notes, publications on a CD-ROM
  • Complete two matrices on research and programmatic activities which will be updated periodically and circulated within the group.
  • The group also discussed identifying existing integration programs in the field and partnering with them to do some evaluation, writing a background paper on the impact of HIV care and treatment on health services, produce a thought piece by a prominent person on the culture clash between the HIV and FP models of care.

    USAID UPDATES:
    Sandra Jordan of USAID gave a brief update on the progress toward development of a USAID brand. She said that there was no danger that we would loose our individual names/branding on our products any time soon.

    On a different note, she suggested the Journal of Health Communication as an avenue for CAs to get their work published. For more info, visit the web site at http://www.gwu.edu/~cih/journal/ . The editor is Scott C. Ratzan, who used to work at the Office of Population.

    FP/HIV Needs Assessment – Consultant’s Report:
    Sandra Jordan will make sure that the report on the needs assessment conducted about FP/HIV integration is shared with the USAID HIV/AIDS and FP working group. A copy is also attached to this e-mail.

    Peggy D’Adamo gave some highlights from the report including the need in the field for more evidence based reports, manuals, checklists, and tools. There was consensus among respondents that materials and publications should be short, (10 pages or less), and should come with an executive summary not to exceed 3 pages. The report will be discussed withun the USAID HIV/AIDS and FP working group.

    Discussion: Evaluation reports. It was pointed out that many programs were not far along enough to produce evaluation reports. But with lack of evaluation reports, new reports were being rolled out without much evidence to back them up.

    Online Bank/Database of FP/HIV integration Resources Steve Goldstein of INFO reported that INFO would propose that it help HIPNET and the newly formed HIV/FP Integration Parters Group to set up an internet accessible bank or database of FP/HIV publications. This database would cast the widest net possible, beyond just CA publications and would be designed to give fast and user-friendly access to the latest HIV/FP publications and tools. HIPNET could use it to identify gaps in knowledge and plan future collaborative publications on integration to fill those gaps. Other audiences such as the Partners Group and the USAID working group could use it for research and to keep abreast of latest developments in the field. INFO, in collaboration with HIPNET, would then publish a digest of the most useful publications which it would print and disseminate to the field as the first publication in its “best-on” series to be published by June 2005. Another idea was to release a CD with a table of contents/topic areas, and full-text of recommended resources under each item. Perhaps this could be done as a collaborative HIPNET activity for a conference.

    The list of recommended resources could then be shared, and users could be surveyed on whether these types of resources are useful.

    Other issues: HIPNET and INFO will need to decide on criteria for choosing publications to be recommended, including that they should be evidence-based. Another measure of success could be whether a program has been scaled up or not.

    FP/HIV integration series:
    The group discussed where to go with the series after the publication of the special issue of Network:
    We agreed that HIPNET needs to market the collaborative series beyond our regular audiences by doing some of the following:

    1. pulling together short pieces to send out as a package, inviting people to adopt/adapt them
    2. distributing them at events
    3. distributing the INFO database on CD-Rom

    We also need to get buy-in from OHA, as well as from the Office of Population on any specific ideas. We asked Sandra and Rose to follow up on the idea of meeting with the HIV/FP working group at USAID and eventually even meeting with representatives from OHA itself.

    Getting OHA Buyin
    One approach we discussed would be to

  • Emphasize how HIPNet could collectively serve as a resource for OHA folks, beginning with the resources that PRH CAs already have that are on HIV/AIDS in the 15 target countries. Sandra and Rose will investigate the idea of meeting with country support coordinators for the PEPFAR countries and selecting 1 or 2 countries where we might assemble a special set of resources on integration that would be especially useful to that country.
  • HIPNET and INFO would like to also get OHA input on the database/publication, and find ways to highlight or make information more accessible for them.
  • Find out what OHA needs are, what we can do for OHA.
  • HIPNet members are encouraged to visit the OGAC website and view the 5-year strategic plans for all 15 target countries, and FAQ about OGAC.

    Follow up:

  • Follow-up with Nomi Fuchs and ask her about:
    1. getting the list of gaps compiled over the previous day. (Peggy)
    2. country support team meetings (Sandra)
    3. country coordinators (Sandra)
  • HIPNet attendance at an upcoming FP/HIV working group meeting (Sandra)
  • Continue to add to the existing list of FP/HIV integration publications, circulate it, and write up a concept paper about the online database. (INFO)
  • Distribute the matrices from the Partners meeting to HIPNet (Peggy)

    Medical Libraries Mailing list:
    Beth Robinson of FHI distributed the Medical Library Mailing list that has been compiled from the mailing lists of about six different CAs. The list contains 2,500 libraries worldwide. Any CA who would like to review it is welcome to do so. Corrections and additions can be sent to FHI. We are planning to send a letter to at least a portion of this list explaining our intention of sending out a group mailing and asking them if they would like to receive it. More on this at the next HIPNET meeting.

    HIPNET-HIF meeting
    There is a joint HIF – HIPNet videoconference meeting from 10 AM – 12 noon on October 5th 2004 at Advance Africa. Subject: sharing reproductive health knowledge. Groups interested in working on the Global Review will meet from 8:30 to 10 at Advance Africa and will report on their plans at the 2nd meeting.

    Next Meeting:
    Next HIPNet Meeting tentatively scheduled for October 27, 2004 at Family Health International in Arlington (11 am – 4 pm) and will focus on sharing information about publications planned for the next work plan year.