For more than fifteen years, RHINO has provided technical support to low and middle income countries to improve the performance of their routine health information system (RHIS) via its website, its forums, and its international workshops.
In a move to bring best practices and lessons learned about the RHIS to each country, RHINO is promoting the setting up of regional RHIS strengthening networks. Experiences from existing health data networks such as RELACSIS in Latin America and AeHIN in Asia show that one of the most efficient ways of strengthening information systems is to learn from your neighbor countries.
RHINO organizes a satellite session at the Health Systems Research (HSR) Consortium in Vancouver on “Strengthening RHIS through Regionalizing Networks”. The session will take place on November 14 at 13.30 – 17.00h. Panel Presenters are:
- Eduardo Celades, Technical Officer for Strategic Planning, M&E (WHO/Geneva), Keynote Speaker and Moderator of the Panel
- Sanjay Zodpey, Public Health Foundation India (PHFI)
- Issaka Sombie, West African Health Organization (WAHO)
- Vincent Shaw, Health Information System Program (HISP/South Africa)
- Juan Eugenio Hernandez, Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica (INSP/Mexico and RELACSIS)
The aim of the session will be to connect RHIS professionals from around the globe to discuss about strengthening regional RHIS advocacy and knowledge sharing networks, and provide learning resources for RHIS professionals to take back to their home organizations and countries. Attendees will learn how advocacy and knowledge management efforts can be decentralized, by setting up regional networks of countries to promote best practices and lessons learned to increase the performance of RHIS in the member countries.
The panel of experts will present regional network experiences from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This will be followed by group work where regional groups will discuss potential innovative mechanisms for setting up new regional RHIS strengthening networks, for sharing best practices on improving RHIS performance, and institutionalizing these networks to advocate for strong country RHIS. The session will end with a reception where various RHIS related products and studies will be exhibited.
RHINO members and all HIS advocates and leaders who are in Vancouver for the conference are warmly invited to join us for this important session. No pre-conference registration is required.
RHINO Greetings,
Dr. Theo Lippeveld
President and Chairman of the Board
Routine Health Information System Network
