A new eHealth partner in Asia
10/24/2018
At a conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on 8 October, the Fondation Pierre Fabre signed a partnership agreement with one of the region’s most active eHealth networks, the Asia e-Health Information Network (AeHIN).
A showcase for the Foundation’s work
The Conference on Interoperable Digital Health for Universal Health Coverage and sixth General Meeting of the Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN), took place in Colombo, Sri Lanka from 07 – 09 October 2018. The event drew about 332 participants from 36 countries from South East Asia, Western Pacific, Africa, Americas, Europe and Oceania. The participants composed primarily of representatives from ministries of health and health-related organisations from government, the development partners, academe and the private sector. In the Conference on Interoperable Digital Health for Universal Health Coverage, the Fondation Pierre Fabre was invited to present about its eHealth programmes during the plenary session, including the Global South eHealth Observatory and teledermatology project. During the third plenary session, Mme Béatrice Garrette, Director General, Fondation Pierre Fabre spoke at a roundtable titled “Digital Health Benefits and Opportunities for Countries”, which included representatives from the World Health Organization (WHO), Asian Development Bank (ADB), Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) being the other speakers.
An official ceremony was also held for the signing of the collaboration agreement between the Foundation and the AeHIN (photo). This partnership facilitates sharing expertise and provides enhanced support to the Observatory’s Asian winners, several of which were invited to Colombo, such as Amakomaya (2017 winner, Nepal), Opération ASHA (2018 winner, Cambodia) and TraumaLink (2018 winner, Bangladesh).
A dynamic network
AeHIN is a collaboration of digital health advocates created by the World Health Organization in 2011 to help Asian countries with digital health development. AeHIN now has more than 1150 members from about 61 countries representing Academia, Government, International Development Agencies, NGOs, UN Agencies and the industry/private sector. AeHIN’s approach is based on peer-to-peer assistance and knowledge sharing with the objective of capacity-building at ministries of health and providing the tools needed to build comprehensive eHealth policies. This serves to combat fragmentation, when there are a wide variety of short-lived, uncoordinated projects undertaken that do not share information with the health authorities in the countries concerned. The network provides a platform for productive exchanges using conceptual tools, combined with a very pragmatic approach with the following four strategic areas for action:
· Enhance leadership and governance for digital health
· Offer capacity-building for digital health (Mind the GAPS), CRVS and people identity
· Create opportunities for knowledge exchange and resource sharing
· Achieve interoperability through appropriate use of standards
