HIFA collaborates with the World Health Organization to 'put science to work to build a healthier, safer world' (www.who.int).
Since the launch of HIFA in 2006, the World Health Organization (WHO) has been HIFA's most important strategic partner (for background see How HIFA works with WHO to improve the availability of healthcare information worldwide )
In January 2022 WHO approved Global Healthcare Information Network (the UK non-profit that administers HIFA) to be a Non-State Actor in Official Relations. Our collaboration is guided by a 3-year Collaboration Plan (2022-2024), which is summarised as follows:
'This plan for collaboration between WHO and The Global Healthcare Information Network CIC (GHI-net) supports WHO's work towards fulfilling its constitutional mandate to extend to all peoples the benefits of medical, psychological and related knowledge and WHO’s activities to ensure access to authoritative and strategic information on matters that affect peoples’ health in line with the 13th General Programme of Work. The activities contained in this collaboration plan inform WHO’s work to further understand and address the healthcare information needs of the public, health workers and policymakers; and specifically supports the uptake of WHO’s products, information and public health messages as an enabler for Universal Health Coverage and to support efforts towards the attainment of relevant Sustainable Development Goals. The plan also supports WHO’s efforts towards fulfilling its strategic objectives on multilingualism, in line with relevant UN and WHA Resolutions.'
The plan has 5 areas for collaboration:
These five areas are described in more detail below:
- To inform WHO’s work on opportunities and challenges to improve the availability and use of reliable healthcare information.
- To support WHO’s work on further understanding and addressing the healthcare information needs of the public, health workers and policymakers.
- To support WHO in the dissemination and uptake of its products in WHO official languages other than English.
- To provide WHO with knowledge on information needs and options to meet them, thereby supporting WHO's work to increase the availability and use of reliable healthcare information, including (and especially) WHO publications.
- To support WHO’s efforts towards promoting outreach, communication and collective understanding with relevant stakeholders.
HIFA currently has a small amount of unrestricted funds ($2k) from its supporting organisations, which we are using to start implementation of Activity 1.1: 'To identify best practices, opportunities and challenges from relevant health related stakeholders, towards pursuing universal access to reliable healthcare information' Budget $15k. We aim to deliver a report to WHO by the end of 2023 'for WHO’s consideration, containing relevant findings that may inform WHO’s work to accelerate progress towards universal access to reliable healthcare information'.
