gms | German Medical Science

GMDS members have engaged in joint projects on Global Health Informatics (GHI) with actors in partner countries in the Global South for many years. Often, these relationships are limited to the respective project context, not networked beyond the actual partnership, and therefore not sustainable beyond the project period. At the same time, there is a high interest in German know-how and academic partnerships in the partner countries: a good number of students from the Global South enroll in Health or Medical Informatics curricula at German Universities because they want to contribute to the Digital Health infrastructure in their home countries. However, without the support of academic and professional networks such as the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) they find it difficult to connect to their domestic networks and to translate their knowledge into the respective local context. A dedicated working group on Global Health Informatics was installed by the GMDS in 2023 to address these specific requirements in countries of the Global South.

The need for such networks became very evident during the recent pandemics: Bird Flu, Ebola and COVID 19 have revealed that the inefficiency of local healthcare systems is a catalyst for the spread of infections. The digital infrastructure of both the affected countries and the international community could only inadequately capture the course of infections, revealing the general inefficiency in the management of health as well as the effective treatment of chronic diseases even in non-pandemic times. The problems with the timely implementation of massive aid packages into effective countermeasures on the ground highlighted to all involved the necessity of international cooperation in building sustainable digital health infrastructure, particularly in countries of the Global South. Networks for the development of public digital goods (such as open-source software and open data exchange formats) provide a good framework for this today.

However, the urgent need for action in the field and the massive investments of a variety of international organizations into the health sector of countries of the Global South often lead to the creation of new professional networks in Digital Health. As mentioned above these oftentimes cannot sustain beyond the end of the project, leading to a fragmentation of the regional professional expert communities. Strong and properly institutionalized national member organizations of the IMIA could provide a means to better channel these investments into the national expert communities during the next pandemic, using the momentum to further strengthen these.

This session wants to explore how IMIA member organizations and other regional health informatics organizations can facilitate these co-operations sustainably. Representatives from regional member and non-member organizations of the IMIA will discuss what is needed to strengthen their institutionalization and impact and how formats for mutual capacity building can be set up and funded.

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

The authors declare that an ethics committee vote is not required.