Access to health information is vital for low income countries

The goal that every person in the world should have access to an informed healthcare provider by 2015 is an ambitious but achievable target, delegates attending a conference in London heard this week.

The Healthcare Information for All by 2015 (HIFA2015) campaign was launched in 2006 with the goal of progressively meeting the information needs of healthcare providers. HIFA2015 has five online discussion networks linking together health professionals, publishers, policymakers, researchers, librarians, information professionals, and citizen representatives. Some of the key messages from the forum discussions are then collated into a knowledge base, known as HIFA lumps.

Speaking at the conference, HIFA2015: addressing the information needs of healthcare providers in low-income countries, Najeeb Al-Shorbaji, director of knowledge management and sharing at the World Health …