Presentation by Neil Pakenham-Walsh (Global Healthcare Information Network) at the Dgroups Peer Exchange - 15 July 2013

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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