Helina

HELINA 2018

The HELINA Board put out a Call for Bids to host HELINA 2018 in June 2017. The Kenya Health Informatics Association presented a bid and was given approval to host the conference in Nairobi, Kenya from 1st - 5th October 2018. It is expected that the region will build on successes of past conferences and will make HELINA 2018 a formidable event.

The conference will focus on how technology is being used to strengthen health systems in the African Region. Issues of specific interest are the development and implementation of integrated e-Health plans and policies that enable capacity building for eHealth professionals, improved quality of health information, and promotion of the meaningful use of health data to support and ground decision-making. Also in focus will be enabling access to essential medical supplies through improved supply chain and logistics, development of sustainable health information systems for service delivery, and innovative health financing models that improve access to health. There is also an interest in the role of digital health in health surveillance systems particularly due to emerging health threats from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and the core participatory role of the client in detection, response, treatment, and care. Special attention will be paid to the role of e-Health in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) voted by the UN in September 2015 and specifically to goal 9, target 9c which aims to “Significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in the least developed countries by 2020”.