Health Information Forum Meetings

The Health Information Forum meetings were a series of public workshops open to everyone with an interest in issues of access to information for health professionals in developing and emerging countries.

Objectives

1. To facilitate contacts and sharing of skills and experience.
2. To promote analysis of health information needs and methods of provision.
3. To advocate and advise, where appropriate, as a collective body of representatives of leading organisations in the field.

Background

Under the chairmanship of Professor KGMM Alberti (President of the Royal College of Physicians), a steering meeting was held on 30th March 1998 to examine ways in which organisations involved in health information provision might work together more effectively.  The group emphasised the need for a Health Information Forum to support and help those involved in health information work, to encourage greater coordination and collaboration, and to achieve more effective working strategies.

The Health Information Forum meetings were planned by the HIF Organising Group, in response to requests and feedback from HIF participants. The HIF Organising Group met every 2 months and included the following people:

• Paul Chinnock (Cochrane Collaboration)
• Luis Gabriel Cuervo (BMJ Clinical Evidence)
• Harry McConnell (Interactive Health Network)
• Neil Pakenham-Walsh (INASP-Health)
• Victoria Richardson (Healthlink Worldwide)
• Ahmad Risk (Health Informatics Europe)
• Jean Shaw (Partnerships in Health Information) 
• Rachel Stancliffe (Update Software)
• David Tibbutt (CME Uganda) 
• Seshadri Vasan (Journal Server Trust, Oxford) 
• Christopher Zielinski (Information Waystations and Staging Posts Network)

Calendar of meetings

1. Meeting the information needs of the isolated healthcare worker (July 14, 1998)