Africa CDC Workforce Development Framework
The Africa Centres for Diseases Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) is a specialized
technical institution of the African Union (AU) launched in January 2017. It is mandated
to support Member States in capacity building in public health. A Task Force for Workforce
Development was established in 2018 and has prepared and published a Framework for
Public Health Workforce Development for 2020-2025. HELINA contributed to the development
of this Framework and will therefore contribute to the operationalization of the Framework.
HELINA has nominated two members to serve on the Health Information Exchange (HIE)
Taskforce that will coordinate and draft a report to guide the African member states
on technical, policy and governance issues around HIE.
Harmonization of Minimum Competencies for Masters in Health Informatics in Africa
On May 8 & 9, 2019, higher education universities in East Africa that have accredited
programs for Masters of Sciences in Health Informatics (MSc HI) met to set minimum
standards for an MSc - Health Informatics program. This process was led by the Inter-University
Council of East Africa (IUCEA) as part of the Credit Accumulation and Transfer process
under their mandate. The minimum standards allow for credits to be transferable between
institutions in the East Africa region. The harmonized curriculum was submitted through
the Commission of University Education in Kenya to the IUCEA for tentative approval
in the third week of December, 2019. Once approved, all existing and new MSc HI programs
in East Africa will have to meet the outlined minimum competencies, with programs
able to extend these requirements as part of institutional differentiation. HELINA
board and Education Working Group were represented at this meeting and contributed
to the review of the harmonized MSC-HI curriculum.
As the next steps, there has been a request to present the harmonized curriculum for
MSc HI for East Africa at the annual Association of African Universities meeting in
March 2020. HELINA Education Working Group will explore potential for more broadly
harmonizing MSc-HI beyond East Africa. A panel discussion, entitled ‘Harmonizing Minimum
Competencies for Masters in Health Informatics in Africa Leveraging University Accreditation
Bodies and Professional Societies’ was held as part of the 2019 HELINA conference.
HELINA 2019 Conference
The 2019 edition of the Pan-African health informatics conference (HELINA) took place
from 20th – 22nd November, 2019 at the University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana.
The conference was hosted by the University of Botswana (UB) e-Health Research Unit
in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Wellness (MoHW), Ministry of Transport
and Communication (MTC), Botswana Institute for Technology Research and Innovation
(BITRI) and the Botswana Health Information Management Association (BoHIMA). The conference
was co-chaired by Dr. Tom Oluoch (HELINA President) and Mr. Kagiso Ndlovu (LOC Chair
/ UB eHealth Research Unit Coordinator). The Botswana Minister of Health and Wellness,
Dr. Lemogang Kwape, officiated the conference opening ceremony.
The conference focused on evidence to practice of digital health interventions to
achieve universal health coverage (UHC). This conference also featured three pre-conference
workshops:
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Drone Technologies for public health and related fields,
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Data Science in Healthcare, and
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Scientific Writing workshop.
The Drone Technologies workshop was officiated by the University of Botswana and the
Botswana International University of Science and Technology in conjunction with the
Botswana Civil Aviation Authority. It aimed at exploring drone technologies for public
health and related fields with the goal of developing a draft policy on the use of
drones for healthcare product/service delivery. The workshop was hugely successful
with delegates spoilt for choice on content and demonstrations of varied drone technologies.
The Data Science workshop was officiated by the CDC Atlanta. Participants explored
the development and use of digital case studies in public health using Jupyter Notebook,
an open source data science platform for working with reproducible, shareable computational
narratives about solving problems in public health informatics. Participants gained
practical knowledge in using the Jupyter Notebook ecosystem of tools and increased
capabilities to utilize data using descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive
analytics and visualization methods to inform program implementation and improvement,
identifying gaps and/or needs, and support decision making.
The Scientific Writing workshop was officiated by the HELINA Education Working Group.
The goal was to build capacity of junior health informatics personnel with an interest
in research on the whole process from generating a research idea to writing a scientific
paper for publication.
Scientific Program
The scientific program committee (SPC) was chaired by Prof. Nicky Mostert from South
Africa, and co-chaired by Prof. Georges Nguefack from Cameroon, and Dr. Frances da-Costa
Vroom from Ghana. The SPC received after the call for papers a total of 133 submissions
out of which 8 full research papers (4.5%), 5 work-in-progress papers (6%), and 11
case studies and experience or concept papers (8%) were accepted. 109 (82%) papers
and case studies were rejected or retracted. A double-blind peer review process was
used for evaluating each paper. All submissions were anonymized before being submitted
to at least 2 reviewers based on their expertise. The SPC decision was based on the
recommendations and comments from reviewers. Accepted and presented full research
papers were published in a special edition of the Journal of Health Informatics in
Africa (JHIA) – http://www.jhia-online.org – and the accepted work-in-progress papers, case studies/experience papers were electronically
published in the conference Proceedings with ISBN by Koegni-eHealth and are available
on the conference website – http://conf.helina-online.org. Further to the papers and case studies accepted by the SPC, 6 keynote-speakers were
invited and 26 posters – mostly revised rejected papers from the double-blind peer
review process – accepted by the LOC and SPC. All accepted posters were presented
during the poster session of day 3 of the conference and voting was conducted for
the best 3 posters, which received awards for their efforts.
Participation
The Conference attracted 175 participants from 17 countries – Belgium, Botswana, Ethiopia,
Ghana, Germany, Japan, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Norway, South Africa, Switzerland,
Tanzania, Uganda, United States of America, Vietnam, and Zambia. They were primarily
members of academia, researchers, public and private sector players, NGOs and health
informatics practitioners.
According to the post conference survey, delegates were very satisfied with the organization,
the abstracts, papers and poster presentations as well as the keynote speeches and
panel discussions. They also provided feedback on areas of improvement for future
conferences. Suggestions included longer timeslot for poster presentations, include
tutorial, more participation from Master and PhD students, and more reports of implementations.
Sponsorship
HELINA 2019 had three commitments from financial sponsors Stop TB Partnership, Geneva,
the Ministry of Health and Wellness, and the Botswana Institute for Technology Research
and Innovation. Further to this, Virtual Business Network offered in-kind internet
connectivity and the University of Botswana offered the conference venue at subsidized
cost.
Regional Editor
Ghislain B. Kouematchoua Tchuitcheu, PhD, FIAHSI
IMIA Vice President for HELINA
E-mail: kouematchoua@helina-online.org
ghislain.k@koegni-ehealth.org
Website: www.helina-online.org
