Working together for a future where
everyone has access to safe, effective healthcare
"The
15th challenge is to ensure that everyone in the world can
have access to clean, clear, knowledge - a basic human right,
and a public health need as important as access to clean,
clear water, and much more easily achievable."
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In the developing world, healthcare providers often lack the basic information
they need to relieve suffering, improve quality of life and prevent
premature deaths.
Many individuals and organisations are working to meet healthcare
information needs, but no-one is coordinating their efforts. Thus
much of the effort is isolated, duplicated and often wasted.
Global Healthcare Information Network (GHI-net) is dedicated to help others work more effectively together in the creation,
exchange and use of healthcare information. The focus is on primary
and district healthcare in low and middle income countries (LMICs),
including both professional and lay healthcare providers. GHI-net
is not itself a provider of healthcare information.
Global Healthcare Information Network (GHI-net) is a non-profit initiative
that provides inclusive support through:
- Communication: Promoting international, regional and national
cooperation
- Understanding: Building a picture of information needs and how
to meet them
- Effective action: Advocacy for cost-effective solutions
1. Communication: Promoting international, regional and national
cooperation
GHI-net promotes multistakeholder networking at international and
national levels. It aims to strengthen links between communities of
practice in related areas (health research, health communications,
and human resource development).
GHI-net currently facilitates four email forums:
- HIFA2015 is the communication tool for the global campaign: Healthcare
Information For All by 2015.
HIFA2015 aims to meet the healthcare information and learning needs of family caregivers and frontline health workers.
See HIFA2015 email archive
Join the HIFA2015 email forum - send your name, organisation and brief
description of professional interests to: hifa2015-admin@dgroups.org
- CHILD2015 aims to meet the healthcare information and learning needs of family caregivers and frontline health workers responsible for the healthcare of infants and children.
See CHILD2015 email archive
Join the CHILD2015 email forum - send your name, organisation
and brief description of professional interests to: child2015-admin@dgroups.org
- HIF-net (Health Information Forum) aims to improve access to information for health
researchers and health professionals. See
HIF-net email archive
Join the HIF-net email forum - send your name, organisation and brief
description of professional interests to: hif-net-admin@dgroups.org
2. Understanding: Building a picture of information needs and how
to meet them
GHI-net is developing a specialised internet resource about the
availability and use of information by healthcare providers, bringing
together the following elements:
- EForum summaries: Summarising and taking forward the ideas and
challenges proposed by HIFA2015 and other eForum communities
- ‘Living reviews’: Regularly updated reviews of key
topics in health information research, drawing from formal and informal
sources, to help identify gaps in understanding and guide new health
information research
- Key resources: Bringing together a bibliography of existing health
information research, with links to the full text where available.
GHI-net identifies and promotes the research needed into the information
needs of healthcare providers and the best ways of meeting these needs.
3. Effective action: Advocacy for cost-effective solutions
GHI-net:
- maps and cultivates the political and financial support needed
to meet the needs of healthcare providers in developing countries
- ensures that the perspectives of under-represented groups are
heard more clearly by the international community.
GHI-net is working with the international health information community
to develop and implement solutions to meet the
information needs of healthcare providers, working in cooperation
with others involved in the broader aims of equity in access to
health care and the Millennium Development Goals.
‘Healthcare Information for All by 2015’
On 26th October 2006, GHI-net, the Association for Health Information
and Libraries in Africa and others launched the first phase of
a major campaign. The goal of the campaign: By 2015, every person
worldwide will have access to an informed healthcare provider. Healthcare
providers worldwide will have the information they need to deliver
safe, effective healthcare. Lack of access to essential healthcare
information will no longer be a major barrier to the delivery of
care in developing countries.
Governance and administration
GHI-net was registered in October 2005 as a non-profit organisation
based in the UK. GHI-net is a networking organisation that encourages
all stakeholders to contribute to its strategic development.
Stakeholders
- Vocational healthcare providers - especially the majority whose
current ability to deliver safe, effective health care is limited
by lack of relevant, reliable reference and learning materials.
- Lay healthcare providers - family members, friends and community
carers.
- Healthcare consumers - especially the majority worldwide who
do not have access to a healthcare professional who is informed,
supported and motivated
- Health trainers - including all those involved in the basic education
and continuing professional development of healthcare professionals
- Health information professionals - librarians and others who
train healthcare providers to find, appraise and use health information
- Producers and distributors of reference and learning materials
- a very large and diverse group, including those who create, publish
and/or distribute original research, systematic reviews, drug formularies,
textbooks, practical newsletters, manuals, clinical guidelines,
and computer-assisted diagnostics
- Communication and development professionals
- Information technologists
- Policy makers and international health organisations
- Regional bodies concerned with health information - eg Association
for Health Information and Libraries in Africa
- Health researchers - including biomedical researchers and health
systems researchers
- Health information researchers - those with specialist research
interests in access, use and application of healthcare information
Acknowledgements
The concept has emerged as a result of dialogue with several organisations
including:
Interested?
We welcome your comments and suggestions, and discussion on possibilities
for partnership and cooperation. We invite you to work with us to
achieve the political, financial and practical commitment needed
to realise the rapid progress that is possible if we all work together.
Please contact us at:
