250092 Power of an easy-to-use, web-based tool to deliver essential information to health professionals in developing countries

Monday, October 31, 2011: 9:30 AM

Ruwaida Salem, MPH , Center for Communication Programs, Knowledge for Health (K4Health) Project, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD
Elizabeth Frazee , Center for Communication Programs, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD
Debra Dickson , Center for Communication Programs, Knowledge for Health (K4Health) Project, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD
Tanda Moyer, BA , Center for Communication Programs, Knowledge for Health (K4Health) Project, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD
Laura Raney, MA , FHI 360, Washington, DC
  
     
Background: Limited access to information remains a barrier to evidence-based health care in developing countries. Knowledge managers need an easy way to organize and deliver collections of essential information to health professionals. Objective: Develop a technological solution that knowledge managers without specialized IT skills can use to organize and deliver health information. Methods: An inter-disciplinary team of knowledge managers and software developers at the Johns Hopkins Knowledge for Health (K4Health) project developed an easy-to-use web-based tool using open-source software. Through an iterative process, software developers adapted the software to meet defined goals of the tool while knowledge managers evaluated prototypes. Results: In 2009 the team released an innovative application that non-IT specialists from more than 80 organizations have used to create over 30 online collections, or toolkits, on a wide range of topics, from reproductive health and HIV/AIDS to gender and mHealth. Through a real-time demonstration, audiences will observe how quickly and easily users can create the navigation for the interface and upload resources using simple drop-down menus and forms. Audience members will then have an opportunity to use the tool themselves through an interactive “competition” to build a toolkit in ten minutes at laptop stations connected to the Internet. Discussion: Innovative use of technology helps support efficient work flows to produce online information products. These products have the potential to reach large audiences of health professionals with up-to-date knowledge. K4Health encourages public health organizations to use the toolkit software to improve access to health information in developing countries.

Learning Areas:
Other professions or practice related to public health

Learning Objectives:
1. Define a technological solution to reaching large audiences of health professionals with essential health information. 2. Name three features of a collaborative web-based tool that supports efficient work flow in organizing collections of health information resources. 3. Demonstrate how to build an online collection of health information resources using a web-based tool.

Keywords: Information Technology, International Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I was part of the interdisciplinary team that developed the software described in the abstract and I oversee the process for developing new information products using the software.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

See more of: Human Computer Interfaces, Data Integration, and Analysis - Part 1
See more of: Health Informatics Information Technology Center (HIIT Center)