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HIFA2015:

How we use Dgroups

Dr Neil Pakenham-Walsh Global Healthcare Information Network

neil@ghi-net.org

www.hifa2015.org

www.dgroups.org/hifa2015

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Outline -15 slides

Why did we choose Dgroups?

What do we want to achieve?

How will we achieve it?

How did we start?

Who and where are our members?

How do we add value to discussions?

How do we use the discussions?

How do we engage non-English speakers?

How are we funded?

How do we evaluate what we do?

A question for discussion: How do we collaborate better?

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Why did we choose Dgroups?

1. We want to use email to reach to rural areas of low-income countries: Dgroups focuses on the Email experience

2. We want to add value to every message: Dgroups has unique functionality to do this

3. We want to collaborate with other organisations: The Dgroups Foundation has 18 Development Partners (eg DFID)

4. We want personal technical support in a non-commercial environment: WA-Research provides excellent support

We (HIFA) affiliate free of charge with:

Full Dgroups Partner = 4000 Euros per year

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What do we want to achieve?

Godlee F et al. Can we achieve health information for all by 2015? Lancet 2004

The HIFA Vision:

“A world where every health worker and every citizen has access to the information they need, when they need it, to prevent and manage disease and injury”

HIFA is a Community of Purpose: working together towards a shared vision.

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How will we achieve the HIFA

vision?

Ref: www.hifa2015.org

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How did we start and

how have we grown?

2006 2013

7000

0

Launch (2006) AHILA Congress, Kenya

HIFA F2F (2014) AHILA Congress, Tanzania

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Who are our members?

6,300 members

>2000 organisations

50%: Health professionals

50%: Information professionals, publishers,

policymakers, researchers…

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Where are our members?

170 countries

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How do we add value to the

discussions?

Pakenham-Walsh N. Reader-Focused

Moderation. KM4Dev Journal

Add value to every message:

• “Subject” Line

• “From” Line

• “Body” - HIFA signature profile

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How do we use the discussions?

1. HIFA-Voices

• A HIFA-Voice is a short, verbatim extract (eg <100 words)

from a HIFA message, carefully selected according to pre-

defined criteria.

• Each HIFA-Voice is tagworded and added to a searchable

database.

• The prototype has 560 HIFA-Voices. The HIFA archive

contains several thousand more HIFA-Voices which have

not yet been processed.

• The HIFA Voices database will drill “up” to major databases

such as GRC, and “down” to the full text of the source

message and discussion thread.

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How do we use the discussions?

2. Using HIFA-Voices to inform

WHO Guidelines

“As the HIFA Knowledge Base evolves over

the coming years, it has the potential to

become a leading source of practical and

experiential data to help inform future

international guidelines by WHO and other

organisations.“ Dr Simon Lewin, WHO Guideline Development Group

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2006– 2009– 2010– 2011–

2006–

How do we engage non-English

speakers?

• 5 Dgroups in 3 different languages, in

collaboration with WHO and others

• Parallel forums

• Bilingual moderators

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How are

we funded?

Total = 25,000 Euros

per year

1 fulltime staff (we

need 1-2 more)

100 volunteers

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How do we evaluate what we do?

Formative evaluation vs Impact evaluation

Major External Evaluation (2011):

“HIFA2015 achieves an extraordinary level of

activity on minimal resources from which

many people around the world benefit”

http://www.hifa2015.org/about/monitoring-and-

evaluation/

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Question for discussion…

There are now many forums in global health but we are each

‘doing our own thing’. So….

…Question: How can we all work more effectively with one another?

Thank you

Special thanks to:

INASP

Dgroups Partners and Board

Pier (Euforic/Communications Support)

Damir Simunic/WA-Research

HIFA Members & Volunteers