Visit the main HIFA website: www.hifa2015.org

Switzerland

How can health research from LMICs be made more accessible? (15) Cochrane

Cochrane fully supports the call for making health research from low and middle income countries more accessible... In our philosophy all research should be accessible, no matter by whom it is produced. Therefore, we are working towards the goal of achieving universal open access to new and updated Cochrane Reviews by the end of our current strategic plan, Strategy to 2020. Our plan for reaching this goal includes a process for providing open access immediately upon publication for both new and updated reviews, and later for our substantial archive of published reviews.

Evidence-informed Health Policy Making: The Role of Policy Brief

I would like to share with you an article on Evidence-informed Health Policy Making: The Role of Policy Brief http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445273/ to reinforce the statement of Dr Najeeb Mohamed Al Shorbaji on EVIPNet which facilitate the translation of knowledge into policy and actions.
 

BBC article: "Trust your doctor, not Wikipedia, say scientists" (6)

Highlighting the quality of health information on the Internet should be in the core of what HIFA2015 is trying to achieve, whether Wikipedia or else. This dialogue should really lead to the more strategic discussion on quality of health information on the Internet, what safeguards, who is publishing under which mandate and why, what code of conduct used, etc.. The recently published guiding principles by WHO http://www.who.int/ehealth/en/ may help.
 
 
 

New policy for WHO-authored or WHO-funded research published in journals and books

...Any reader with access to the internet can find and read a whole article. Researchers and policy-makers can find and combine information without having to seek permission and pay to reproduce a graph or table. Information can be automatically brought together on websites and platforms, making the management of information more efficient. 
 
As subscription barriers to access will be removed for everyone, WHO-authored and WHO-funded work will gain much wider visibility and impact.
 

Universal access to health information is a prerequisite to Universal Health Care (6)

For a community or country to achieve universal health coverage, several factors must be in place, including:

1. A strong, efficient, well-run health system that meets priority needs through people-centred, integrated care (including services for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, noncommunicable diseases, maternal and child health) by informing and encouraging people to stay healthy and prevent illness; detecting health conditions early; having the capacity to treat disease; and helping patients with rehabilitation.

Translation of information on medicines (3) Multilingual Unified Medical Dictionary

WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean in Cairo has been working on the Unified Medical Dictionary over the last 30 years. The latest version of it was published few months ago in four formats: CD-ROM (I will be happy to send you a copy), the printed volume (you may contact the Regional Office to get a copy), and eBook on the web and the online version on the web http://www.emro.who.int/umd/ (searchable in Arabic and English). The Dictionary is multilingual Arabic, English, French, Spanish and Chinese is coming.

HINARI should extend permission to private health facilities (4)

Thank you Dr. Ana and Dr. Awokola for the suggestions of expanding the criteria for eligibility of access to HINARI to include private health-care facilities. The HINARI partners recognize that categories of private vs public organizations is one that differ significantly from country to country. At the same time, we need categories of institutions that can be easily understood, described, and assessed.

Is HINARI appropriate for medical students in the developing world? (3) Online book content in HINARI

In October 2011, for example, Elsevier announced they were contributing an additional 950 online books [http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authored_newsitem.cws_home/companynews0... ] for access through HINARI. Elsevier actually has been modest and between October and December in fact contributed over 6,000 additional books to HINARI. These books are not all (or even mostly) in the medical field, of course, but this large contribution shows the continuing engagement of our publisher partners.

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