Dear All,
The West African Health Informatics Fellowship Program (WAHIFP, website: http://wahifp.org - under development), wishes to announce to the general public that its operational hub, to be known as the West African Centre for Health Informatics (WACHI), will be inaugurated on Wednesday the 3rd of September 2014 at the Nkoranza Campus of the Anglican University College of Technology (Ang.U.Tech) in the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana, West Africa.
WACHI will be hosted by the Health Information Management Department, within the School of Food & Health Sciences of Anglican University College of Technology (Ang.U.Tech) at Nkoranza. Since Nkoranza is actually at the front-line of ehealth in resource-constrained settings(about 360km north of Accra), the Head Office of Ang.U.Tech in Accra, as previously announced, will remain one of the contact points for WACHI, with the Director of Administration as the main HQ contact person. The twin Ang.U.Tech undergraduate programs of a) Health Information Management and b)Community Medicine & Health both within the School of Food & Health Sciences and currently under development provide the perfect platform from where we can set up ehealth programs across West Africa.
With two of WAHIFP’s OpenMRS-driven ehealth projects recently selected by the European Union 7th Framework Program (EU FP7 e-Infrastructures for Africa Program: http://ei4africa.eu) for development as demonstrator projects for Africa to demonstrate the role of e-infrastructures and high speed computing, in helping to solve Africa’s problems, it is clear that WAHIFP with its global network of over 20 academic centres and institutions worldwide and about 600 healthcare professionals, health informaticians and ehealth enthusiasts, is entering a very exciting phase hence the need for an institutional home. Also, with the support of the EEG servers in the Health Informatics Department of the University of San Francisco, WAHIFP is exploring new frontiers with the planned OpenMRS-driven mobile EEGs for Africa among others. There are truly exciting times ahead!
Meanwhile, a number of major international ehealth organizations are teaming up with WAHIFP to organise a high-impact ehealth event for the West African sub-region, slated for mid-summer 2015, in Accra. As a result, the planned WAHIFP conference for October this year has been cancelled to give us ample planning horizon towards it. We shall actively begin brainstorming the groundwork for this conference. A formal announcement in relation to this mid-summer conference will shortly be made jointly with the relevant ehealth partners once the initial groundwork is completed.
To kick-start the Centre we are planning following workshops:
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Workshop on ‘The Use of WAHIFP-supported OpenMRS Cloud Servers for eHealth Research In West Africa’ Venue: Nkoranza Campus, Anglican University College of Technology / St Theresa Catholic Hospital, Nkoranza. Date: 29th January 2015
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OpenMRS-based Mobile Tele-psychiatry for Community Mental Healthcare Professionals. Venue: Nkoranza Campus, Anglican University College of Technology / St Theresa Catholic Hospital, Nkoranza. Date: 26th February 2015
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OpenMRS Developers/Implementers Training Venue: Accra Date: TBC
More information on the West African Health Informatics Fellowship Program can be found on our website.
Any individuals, institutions, private companies NGOs etc involved in ehealth for resource-constrained settings are welcome to partner with WAHIFP to share their ideas and technologies for the benefit of all. What we are building is formidable platform for exchange (call it a marketplace if you like).
Better is not good enough, the best is yet to come for ehealth in Africa! Join in the action now!
You are ALL cordially invited to this milestone event.
Regards! … Dr Julius Awakame MB.ChB, MSc, MCSE, MCDBA PhD Student, Yorkshire Centre for Health Informatics, University of Leeds, UK Founder/President, West African Health Informatics Fellowship Program Staff Grade Psychiatrist, Norfolk Suffolk Foundation NHS Trust,UK. Member, UK Council for Health Informatics Professions (UKCHIP) … Program Coordinator, Health Information Management Director, West African Centre for Health Informatics (W.A.C.H.I) Anglican University College of Technology(ANG.U.TECH) P. O. Box 1167, Teshie-Nungua Estate, Accra, Ghana