Dear HIFA Colleagues,
This is to share that Neil Pakenham-Walsh and I, on 12 May 2026, participated in a very interesting interactive Webinar on ‘Informal mobile phone use in the health services: maximizing the benefits and minimize the challenges’.
It was organised by Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Makerere University, and moderated by the WHO (Dr Alain Labrique, Director, WHO Dept of Data, Digital Health, Analytics and Artificial Intelligence). HIFA was one of the partners.
Following the presentations by Prof Claire Glenton, HVL, Norway; Prof Simon Lewin, NTNU, Norway; Dr Rehema Namaganda and Prof Nelson Sewankambo, College of Health Sciences, Makerere University, Uganda; Dr Tigest Tamrat, WHO Dept of Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing and HRP, Switzerland, it was a very interesting experience to provide live input through a Google document regarding the draft checklist for guidance on informal use of mPhones by the healthcare workers.
HIFA mHealth-Innovate in 2024 had led A ‘Thematic Discussion’, which resulted in a publication: ‘Healthcare workers' informal uses of mobile phones to support their work: a qualitative evidence synthesis’ with some HIFA members (Glenton C, Paulsen E, Smisha Agarwal S, Unni Gopinathan U, Johansen M, Kyaddondo D, Munabi-Babigumira S, Nabukenya J, Nakityo I, Namaganda R, Josephine Namitala J, Tom Neumark T, Nsangi A, Pakenham-Walsh N, Rashidian A, Geoff Royston G, Sewankambo N, Tigest Tamrat N, Lewin S.
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD015705.pub2/...
[For more on this HIFA project see: https://www.hifa.org/projects/mhealth-innovate-what-can-we-learn-health-... ]
Best wishes
Dr. Meena Nathan Cherian, MBBS, MD (Anaesthesia)
(Former WHO Lead Emergency and Essential Surgical Care Program, Geneva, Switzerland).
Director, Global Health New Challenges: Geneva Foundation for Medical Education & Research, Switzerland. www.gfmer.ch/surgery/cancer.htm <http://www.gfmer.ch/surgery/cancer.htm> (NSA-WHO)
Senior Advisor Global Action International Society of Geriatric Oncology <https://siog.org/about-us/governance/leadership/permanent-committees/> Permanent Committees - SIOG
Senior Advisor, International College of Surgeons-Global Affairs. <https://icsglobal.org/> https://icsglobal.org/ (NSA-WHO)
Adjunct Prof.The Chinese University of Hong Kong,Shenzhen,China. <https://med.cuhk.edu.cn/en/teacher/371> https://med.cuhk.edu.cn/en/teacher/371
WHO-HIFA Essential Health Services; mHEALTH-INNOVATE. <http://www.hifa.org/> www.hifa.org (NSA-WHO).
Geneva, Switzerland. +41 763837253 <mailto:+41%20763837253> (m); cherianm15@gmail.com <mailto:cherianm15@gmail.com>
HIFA profile: Dr Meena Nathan Cherian was a professor of anaesthesiology from Christian Medical College Hospital, Vellore, India. She trained, worked, and taught in several countries, USA (Johns Hopkins Hospital), Southeast Asia and Africa. She worked at the World Health Organization Headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland, as the Emergency and Essential Surgical Care Program Lead where she created the ‘surgical care’ program resulting in the first World Health Assembly Resolution on ‘Emergency and Essential Surgical Care and Anaesthesia in the context of Universal Health Coverage’. Currently she works as the Director, Global Health New Challenges program, Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research, Geneva, Switzerland; Adjunct Prof. The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China; Senior Advisor, Global Action, International Society of Geriatric Oncology, Switzerland; she is a member of the HIFA Steering Group; HIFA Partnerships and Projects Working Group; and HIFA mHEALTH-INNOVATE Working Group. cherianm15@gmail.com