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Project Group

Global Health Informatics (GHI)

Background

In international cooperation with countries of the Global South, there have been many contacts and joint projects between German institutions and individuals with actors in resource constrained partner countries in the field of health data for many years. Often, these are limited to the respective project context, not networked nationwide, and therefore not sustainable beyond the project period. At the same time, there is a high interest in German know-how and academic partnerships in the partner countries. Based on this, cooperation and communication among researchers, clinicians, and students between countries in Europe and countries of the Global South are intended to be promoted through transnational exchange of research methods, infrastructure, and medical data. In order to network individual projects and initiate and advance joint project ideas, this working  group is intended to be a driving force.

Activities

  • Regular calls and meetings of the group (biannually)
  • Joint webinars for GMDS members (potentially also external)
  • Collaborative publications
  • Twinning of companies, organizations, and individuals for South-North exchange
  • Participation in relevant conferences hosting sessions/workshops (e.g., GMDS, MIE, MEDINFO, HELINA, GDHF)
  • Promotion and facilitation of exchange opportunities for students and academics, as well as supervision of student theses (BSc, MSc, PhD)
  • Development of joint teaching formats

GMDS Annual Report 2024

Project Group
Global Health Informatics (GHI)

Dr. Fleur Fritz-Kebede, Heidelberg (Lead)
Uwe Wahser, Sandhausen (Lead)

Activities from January, 1st 2024 to December, 31st 2024

Throughout the year 2024, group members have reached out to other member organisations of the IMIA and related Health Informatics Associations to discuss potential synergies, such as the GHI group of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), the Pan-African Health Informatics Association (HELINA) and the Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN) and several national level associations. The group organized and contributed to a number of activities to support this aim:

  • On March 15th 2024, in which Dr. Alain Labrique and colleagues from the World Health Organisation (WHO) gave a presentation about “The Digital Health Portfolio of the WHO”.
  • The GHI group and activities were presented to the speakers of the other GMDS groups on June, 20th and 21st during the 2024 retreat of the GMDS (report in German, page 28) in the monastery of Ohrbeck near Osnabrück. 
  • At the 2024 GMDS conference in Dresden, a symposium on the topic of "Strengthening the Collaboration of IMIA Member Organizations on Global Health Informatics" was organized in a hybrid format with representatives of Asian and African Health Informatics Associations. 
  • The annual workshop of the GHI group was also organized as a hybrid event during the same conference. 

Members of the project group also participated in a number of international conferences to explore the interest and relevance of an international collaboration with GMDS and to discuss common health informatics topics: 

The core team of the project group with four members met biweekly in a videocall to discuss and plan group activities. Unfortunately it was not possible to conduct the quarterly webinar series to the planned extent due to unforeseen circumstances.

Term of service of the group lead

December 2023 until December 2026

GMDS Annual Report 2023

Project Group
Global Health Informatics (GHI)

Dr. Fleur Fritz-Kebede, Heidelberg (Lead)
Uwe Wahser, Sandhausen (Lead)

Activities from January, 1st 2023 to December, 31st 2023

At the 2023 GMDS conference in Heilbronn, a workshop on the topic of "Global Health Informatics" (GHI) led to the formation of a project group with the same name. The proposal was approved by FAMI in December, and Fleur Fritz-Kebede (University Hospital Heidelberg) and Uwe Wahser (GIZ) were both selected as spokespersons for this group. Since then, topics have been developed together with the group's interested members. The main goals and activities are the sustainable networking of experts working in Germany with each other and with national sister organizations of GMDS in partner countries, as well as with international professional societies. This aims to promote, for example, the exchange of students and researchers, provide opportunities for supervising theses, develop joint teaching formats and project proposals, and encourage the focus on global topics at relevant professional conferences.

Throughout the year 2023, group members have reached out to other member organisations of the IMIA and related Health Informatics Associations to discuss potential synergies, such as the GHI group of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), the Pan-African Health Informatics Association (HELINA) and the Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN) and several national level associations. Members of the project group also participated in a number of international conferences to explore the interest and relevance of an international collaboration with GMDS. Some of the conferences are listed below:

The core team of the project group has started to meet regularly to plan their activities and has started to set up their channels such as the web sites and a mailing list. A quarterly webinar series was started with occasional inputs from external partners. On March 15th 2024, Dr. Alain Labrique from the World Health Organisation (WHO) gave a presentation about their digital health portfolio.At the 2024 GMDS the group will host a symposium to discuss options for an improved co-operation of international Health Informatics associations that operate in the Global South.

Term of service of the group lead

December 2023 until December 2026