Bellagio — AllAfrica's Boakai Fofana, based in Monrovia, is one of a few media professionals brought to Bellagio, Italy by the Rockefeller Foundation to attend an invitation-only international conference on harnessing Internet-enabled technologies to radically improve public healthcare. AllAfrica - where pioneering technologies have made our work possible - was an early advocate of exploiting web-based innovations for health. The AllAfrica Foundation is prototyping its HealthAfrica initiative with the planned launch of HealthLiberia, where a hospitable environment - including government commitment to public health and willingness to embrace innovative technologies - will make it possible to showcase the potential of the Internet to improve health, even in the most challenging conditions. Read about the initiative at HealthAfrica.org.
Efforts aimed at using the growing potential of the Internet to improve public health globally got underway in the Italian city of Bellagio last week, with a gathering of academics, information and communication technologies experts and health professionals, researchers and policy analysts from around the world.
The month-long event, hosted by the Rockefeller Foundation under the banner: "Making the eHealth Connection: Global Partnerships, Local Solutions", is bringing together diverse participants from government, business and civil society to discuss an emerging field of interest called eHealth - the use of information and communications technologies in support of health and health-related fields. This, according to many of the conference participants, is an effective way of tackling the numerous health problems, including those of the "Global South," a reference to developing countries.
Conference organizers and partners are as diverse as the participants. They include the World Health Organization, the UN Foundation, the Vodafone Group Foundation, the International Medical Informatics Association and the pioneering health NGO, Partners in Health. Beginning July 13 and continuing to August 8, participants are discussing topics ranging from national health information systems to the interoperability of software applications, from capacity building among health workers to telemedicine.
Keynote presentations opening each of the first two week-long sessions have highlighted the plight of poor and vulnerable people around the world. Tim Evans, assistant director-general for information, evidence and research at the World Health Organization, was the first week's speaker. He challenged participants to create meaningful alliances and partnerships that will place eHealth more centrally on the global health agenda and also address promising new areas in eHealth applications, particularly those relevant to the needs of developing countries.
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"Imagine if we can improve health care deliveries by even 10 percent," how many children's lives could be saved and how much health systems could be improved, said the second week's keynote speaker, Brian Nairn, recently retired as chief executive officer of Elsevier Health Systems. He expressed optimism that the mobile phone generation will adapt to and adopt new technologies to address the gap in health services between developed and developing countries.
Nairn highlighted the special challenges of sub-Saharan Africa, where the severe shortage of health care workers is compounded by a lack of health educators. He demonstrated how through video technology, complicated health procedures – including complex surgeries - could be demonstrated to health practitioners far afield.
Small group presentations and discussions on each week's themes provide for the exchange of ideas between sectors and regions. Conference organizers and partners have ambitious goals for the gathering, as a prod to focus greater global attention to the under-utilized opportunities in information and communications technologies for improving health around the world. They hope to support the development of a sustainable plan for rolling out Internet-based platforms, to promote interoperability and open standards and to encourage new partnerships, collaborations and coalitions.
