Monday 27 September 2010

Open Source and Global Health Unconference Held in Accra

Last week, from 20th to 24th September, a special unconference, aimed at improving the deployment of Health Informations Systems (HIS) in West Africa, using open source technology, was hosted in Ghana. I first learnt about the conference through a post on Intra Health Intenational's website. This is a great example of how technology can be applied to a pertinent area of development. The training was held at Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in InformationCommunication Technology (AITI-KACE).

What happened at the Unconference?

Assessment of the need to use local adaptations of technology in healthcare

Training in the deployment and customisation of open source tools for healthcare

Formation of a regional collaborative network

Reading through the reports coming in from the event, I got the impression that it was well attended and very educative. Hopefully, we'll see some improvements in the area of information management in healthcare as this is crucial to the overall progress of the healthcare system itself. Big thanks to West African Health Organization (WAHO), WHO, the University of Oslo, Health Metrics Network (HMN) and the CapacityPlus project for putting this together.
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