Thursday Apr 25, 2024
Thursday Apr 25, 2024
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The largest global digital health event this year, Digital Health Week 2018, will take place in Colombo from 7 to 12 October. Already over 600 delegates from over 60 countries have registered for the various conferences happening during the digital health week.
The Digital Health Week is a global event organised by the Health Informatics Society of Sri Lanka (HISSL), the Sri Lanka Medical Association (SLMA), the Commonwealth Medical Association (CMA), the Commonwealth Centre for Digital Health (CWCDH), the Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN), the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA), the Asia Pacific Association for Medical Informatics (APAMI), the World Health Organization (WHO), Asian Development Bank (ADB), the University of Colombo and the Ministry of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine of Sri Lanka.
The Digital Health Week consists of six conferences:
Conference on Interoperable Digital Health for Universal Health Coverage and 6th General Assembly of the Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN): 7 to 9 October 2018
Board Meeting and General Assembly of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA): 7 to 8 October 2018
10th Biennial Conference of the Asia Pacific Association for Medical Informatics (APAMI 2018): 9 to 11 October 2018
Global Telehealth 2018 (GT2018): 9 to 11 October 2018
3rd Commonwealth Digital Health Conference & Awards (CWDHC&A): 12 October 2018
Digital Health Sri Lanka 2018: 12 October 2018
And the Commonwealth Digital Health Expo 2018: 9 to 12 October 2018
Digital Health Week 2018 would be the largest gathering of digital health professionals from around the world anywhere in the world in 2018. All the above mentioned major international digital health organisations are coming to Sri Lanka because of the pioneering role that Sri Lanka is playing in Digital Health. The Digital Health Week 2018 builds on the success of previous Digital Health Conferences held in Colombo, Sri Lanka in 2010, 2014, 2015, 2016 (http://www.cma2016.org), and 2017 (http://www.dhc2016.org).
The Health Informatics Society of Sri Lanka, founded on 18 November 1998, traces its origins to the Medical Informatics Committee of the Sri Lankan Medical Association, established in January 1997. In 2007 on an initiative of the HISSL, the University of Colombo, established the Specialty Board in Biomedical Informatics that runs the MSc in Biomedical Informatics and MD in Health Informatics Courses in Sri Lanka that leads to board certification of specialists in the field of Health Informatics in the country.
Sri Lanka is only the second country in the world, after USA, to recognise Health Informatics as a medical specialty. Over the past decade Sri Lanka’s eHealth ecosystem has grown around the 120 graduates of the above-mentioned courses. They have spearheaded the development of a sustainable digital health ecosystem in Sri Lanka. These initiatives that commenced in Sri Lanka were internationalised in October 2016 when Professor Vajira H.W. Dissanayake became the President of the Commonwealth Medical Association and initiated the Commonwealth Digital Health Initiative.
The highlights of the initiative were the Launch of the Commonwealth Digital Health Centre at a side event of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in London, UK on 20 April 2018 with the participation of Maithripala Sirisena and the Ministerial Luncheon on Digital Health Commonwealth as a side event of the World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland on 22 May 2018 with the participation of Dr. Rajitha Senaratne and Ministers of Health of India, Malta, Jamaica, and South Africa.
These events were perfectly timed to support the adoption of the first ever global resolution on Digital Health that was adopted by the World Health Assembly on 24 May 2018. As a result of these efforts Sri Lanka is now taking leadership in Digital Health globally.
