I am surprised, and I guess many others will too, that efforts to create a domain of trusted health information, by an institution with the reach, reputation, capacity and capability of the W.H.O. should fail, not once but twice. It would be interesting to know why, beyond that ‘commercial interest won out’ as Chris shared.
It should not be okay to leave the guarantee of good quality health information to provenance, only. The WHO should try, try, and try again until it creates such a domain that works for all beyond commercial interest nd gain.
Joseph Ana.
Prof Joseph Ana
Lead Senior Fellow/ medicalconsultant.
Center for Clinical Governance Research &
Patient Safety (ACCGR&PS) @ HRI GLOBAL
P: +234 (0) 8063600642
E: info@hri-global.org
8 Amaku Street, State Housing, Calabar,Nigeria.
www.hri-global.org
HIFA profile: Joseph Ana is the Lead Senior Fellow/Medical Consultant at the Centre for Clinical Governance Research and Patient Safety in Calabar, Nigeria, established by HRI Global (former HRIWA). He is a member of the World Health Organisation’s Technical Advisory Group on Integrated Care in primary, emergency, operative, and critical care (TAG-IC2). As the Cross River State Commissioner for Health, he led the introduction of the Homegrown Quality Tool, the 12-Pillar Clinical Governance Programme, in Nigeria (2004-2008). For sustainability, he established the Department of Clinical Governance, Servicom & e-health in the Cross River State Ministry of Health, Nigeria. His main interest is in whole health sector and system strengthening in Lower, Low and Middle Income Countries (LLMICs). He has written six books on the 12-Pillar Clinical Governance programme, suitable for LLMICs, including the TOOLS for Implementation. He served as Chairman of the Nigerian Medical Association’s Standing Committee on Clinical Governance (2012-2022), and he won the Nigeria Medical Association’s Award of Excellence on three consecutive occasions for the innovation. He served as Chairman, Quality & Performance, of the Technical Working Group for the implementation of the Nigeria Health Act 2014. He is member, National Tertiary Health Institutions Standards Committee of the Federal Ministry of Health. He is the pioneer Secretary General/Trustee-Director of the NMF (Nigerian Medical Forum) which took the BMJ to West Africa in 1995. Joseph is a member of the HIFA Steering Group and the HIFA working group on Community Health Workers. (http://www.hifa.org/support/members/joseph-0 http://www.hifa.org/people/steering-group). Email: info AT hri-global.org and jneana AT yahoo.co.uk
On Monday, 13 March 2023 at 09:41:23 GMT-4, Chris Zielinski, UK <chris@chriszielinski.com> wrote:
Thomas Krichel writes, "How would such a kite-marking scheme look like? Who would own and operate it? And are you not concerned that it would impeed the progress on science, which depends on constantly challenging the existing information?" While it is true that a number of kite-marking schemes have been proposed and many have died a death (Health on the Net, or HON being the latest to pull down the shutters - see https://www.hon.ch/en/), it continues to amaze me that there is nothing that guarantees the good quality of health information, other than provenance: if it is a good source, it is likely to be as good as is available. To answer Thomas's question directly, IMHO the best scheme proposed has been to set up a trusted domain. WHO has tried on two separate occasions to establish .Health as such a trusted domain (the second time under the leadership of none other than Dr Najeeb Al Shorbaji), but in both instances, commercial interests won out, and the WHO application was rejected by ICANN. The .Health domain is now being operated as a commercial activity. I still believe that WHO, in collaboration with other parities committed to public health, could create and operate such a domain (see my paper on infodemics and infodemiology - https://iris.paho.org/bitstream/handle/10665.2/53850/v45e402021.pdf). WHO should be encouraged to try again. Finally, I certainly agree with Thomas that science only advances through falsification - "constantly challenging the existing information" - but don't see how creating a domain of trusted information obstructs that. Instead of researchers wasting their time seeking to falsify mis/disinformation, they should be challenging the best information there is. Chris Zielinski Centre for Global Health, University of Winchester, UK and Vice President, World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) Blogs; http://ziggytheblue.wordpress.com and http://ziggytheblue.tumblr.com Publications: http://www.researchgate.net and https://winchester.academia.edu/ChrisZielinski/
HIFA profile: Chris Zielinski: As a Visiting Fellow and Lecturer at the Centre for Global Health, University of Winchester, Chris leads the Partnerships in Health Information (Phi) programme, which supports knowledge development and brokers healthcare information exchanges of all kinds. He is the elected Vice President (and President-in-Waiting) of the World Association of Medical Editors. Chris has held senior positions in publishing and knowledge management with WHO in Brazzaville, Geneva, Cairo and New Delhi, with FAO in Rome, ILO in Geneva, and UNIDO in Vienna. He served on WHO's Ethical Review Committee, and was an originator of the African Health Observatory. He also spent three years in London as Chief Executive of the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society. Chris has been a director of the UK Copyright Licensing Agency, Educational Recording Agency, and International Association of Audiovisual Writers and Directors. He has served on the boards of several NGOs and ethics groupings (information and computer ethics and bioethics). chris AT chriszielinski.com. His publications are at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chris-Zielinski and https://winchester.academia.edu/ChrisZielinski/ and his blogs are http://ziggytheblue.wordrpress.com and https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ziggytheblue
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