Africa Build | Building sustainable capacity for research for health in Africa

Capacity for research for Health in Africa

AFRICA BUILD is a Coordination Action aiming to support and develop advanced Centres of Excellence in health care, education and research in the African countries, through Information Technologies.

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AFRICA BUILD at the Geneva Health Forum

The Geneva Health Forum is held every two years and took place from the 18th of April to the 20th of April 2012.
It is an international Forum where policymakers, fieldworkers and frontliners meet and interactively discuss health issues .The topic of this years Forum was: "A Critical Shift to Chronic Conditions: Learning From the Frontliners." and also had a track on Health Information Technologies and Research & Education. The AFRICA BUILD project attended the Forum at the RAFT (http://raft.hcuge.ch/) Stand, distributing fact sheets and explaining the main objectives of the project.

AFRICA BUILD at the Med-e-Tel

Med-e-Tel
We are pleased to share with you an image of our AFRICA BUILD poster at the 10th edition of Med-e-Tel (2012), the International eHealth, Telemedicine and Health ICT Forum for Education, Networking and Business, which took place in Luxembourg, between the 18th and the 20th of April, 2012.
Med-e-Tel is the official yearly event of the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth. Within the frame of the exhibition space, a special poster section has been made available to National, Associate and Institutional members to present their programs and achievements: amongst these we presented the AFRICA BUILD project and a lot of interest was generated.

AFRICA BUILD Partners Meet in Accra, Ghana

Between March 5th and 9th 2012, partners of the Africa Build Consortium met at the University of Ghana in Accra. The Accra meeting discussed activities relating to work packages three (building a collaborative and training infrastructure) and six (pilot and validation) of the project. This meeting was significant in the life course of the project in the sense that it was the first meeting following the kick off meeting in Madrid. Additionally, it was held in Ghana which is one of the African country partners.

Participants of the Technical Workshop

The five day meeting had two main sessions. The first three days were focused on technical sessions focused on developing the eLearning infrastructure while the remaining two days focused on engineering the pilot and validation. Sandwiched between these two sessions was a seminar on Biomedical informatics at the school of Public Health.

The infrastructure development session which began on Monday, 5th March involved the IT developers from all the partners present at the meeting. The sessions were facilitated by the representatives of the University Polytechnic of Madrid (Victor Maojo, Ana Jiménez Castellanos and Máximo Ramirez Robles). Presentations and demonstration sessions were used to introduce the African partner developers to the portal, indicating which components have been developed already as well as the components remaining to be developed collaboratively as part of the portal. As part of these sessions, the discussions focused on objectives of the work package, the software needs (in this case ELGG (an open source social networking application), as well as development of widgets for the platform being developed.

On the third day, Prof Victor Maojo of the University Polytechnic of Madrid gave a two hour Seminar on “Biomedical Informatics Situation and Challenges for Africa”. This Seminar was well attended by faculty and staff of the University of Ghana as well as stakeholders in the health and Informatics community in Accra. The seminar covered the history of health informatics as it progressed from its use in the business arena into its health applications until now. The challenges encountered in the use of information technologies as experienced in Western countries were also discussed. Eventually, Professor Maojo concluded that African countries have an opportunity to successfully transition from paper based health records to electronic health records. In total, about 150 participants were recorded in attendance at the Seminar. At the end of the Seminar opportunity was given for participants to ask questions.

Seminar Seminar

The last two days of the meeting was used to discuss implementation of the pilot and validation components of the project. This section of the meeting was led by representatives of the Institute of Tropical Medicine, in Belgium (ITM), the University of Geneva and the World Health Organization (WHO). Presentations in this session were made by Mandana Mehta, Asa Cuzin-Kihl, Caroline Franck, Máximo Ramirez Robles and Maria Zolfo. The discussions centered around identifying the targets for the pilot, content of the curriculum, format and structure of the courses to be developed as well as identification of the faculty who will be involved in delivering the content.

At the end of these sessions, some time was dedicated to discussing timelines for delivering on outcomes of the work packages and decisions made regarding expectations from the partners.

“Biomedical Informatics situation and Challenges for Africa”. Wednesday, 7th March 2012. Accra

The Seminar on “Biomedical Informatics situation and Challenges for Africa” will be presented by Prof. Victor Maojo, Director, Biomedical Informatics Group, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid scheduled on Wednesday, 7th March 2012 from 9:00am – 11:00am in the Auditorium of the School of Public Health, University of Ghana, Legon.

Website in English, French and Arabic

From today, to promote access to our information from the African continent, the AFRICA BUILD Website is accessible in the three most spoken languages in Africa: English, French and Arabic.

WP3 and WP6 Meeting in Accra

In March 2012 the AFRICA BUILD Consortium will meet in Accra for a week of activities related to two work packages: Building a collaborative and training infrastructure (WP3) and Pilot and Validation (WP6). The aim of this week is to introduce partners to the portal that will host learning and research activities, and to gather essential information for the development of courses on HIV and Reproductive Health and Research.

The first half of the week will concentrate on technical aspects of WP3, with a workshop, given by our colleagues from UPM, on the development of computer applications for the AFRICA BUILD Portal. This workshop will be attended by technicians from every African partner, and will aim to address any obstacles that have been uncovered.

Following these two more technical days, there will be an afternoon allocated to a meeting for all members of WP3 to review the status quo vis-a-vis the platform and future services planned. A local seminar is also planned by UPM, targeting local stakeholders and dealing with the Biomedical Informatics Situation and Challenges for Africa.

Towards the end of the week there will be a one and a half day meeting to kick off WP6. These sessions will be attended by at least one representative from each partner, and will involve a review of courses offered at the ITM and WHO, a description of the current situation amongst the African partners in terms of courses, training, staff and infrastructure needs in the field of research in HIV/AIDS and Reproductive Health.

During the course of the week each partner will have the opportunity to present, and give feedback to the other partners regarding any adaptations that should be made to existing services and courses to better suit their target population.

The organization of this week is shared between the Ghanaian partners, and the leaders of WP3 and WP6, UPM and ITM respectively.

More detailed information regarding the seminar and workshops will following in the coming weeks.

Victor Maojo elected Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics

Professor Victor Maojo, Project Coordinator of AFRICA BUILD, has been elected Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI).
The American College of Medical Informatics, is a college of elected fellows from the United States and abroad who have made significant and sustained contributions to the field of medical informatics. Initially incorporated in 1984, the organization later dissolved its separate corporate status to merge with the American Association for Medical Systems and Informatics (AAMSI) and the Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care (SCAMC) when the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) was formed in 1989. The College now exists as an elected body of fellows within AMIA, with its own bylaws and regulations that guide the organization, its activities, and its relationship with the parent organization.

AFRICA BUILD at the Open Access Africa Conference

The second Open Access Africa Conference was held in Kumasi (Ghana) on October 25th and 26th. Around 150 people attended the Conference coming from different African countries. The AFRICA BUILD project attended the Conference to present a poster explaining the main objectives of the project.