HELINA 2021 Conference: Pan-African health informatics conference 2021 Virtual Conference. Register at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=helina2021 Host: Uganda Health Informatics Assoc, Uganda, October 18-20, 2021

The 2021 Edition of the Pan African Health Informatics (HELINA-2021) conference will be held in Kampala, Uganda from 18th - 20th October, 2021 as a fully virtual conference due to Covid-19. The conference will be online by the Uganda Health Informatics Association (UgHIA - https://ughia.org) in partnership with the Makerere University, School of Public Health (MakSPH) and the Ministry of Health (MOH), Uganda under the theme “Leveraging Digital Health Interventions to Enhance Prevention, Response and Control of Public Health Emergencies in Low and Middle-Income Countries”

The main theme for the Conference was inspired by the Covid-19 pandemic and the role that digital health technologies play in such public health emergencies and particularly, their increasing adoption and use during the current pandemic. The conference will also focus on digital solutions in routine care and the role of digital health in supporting continuity of care in a pandemic such as Covid-19.

Conference Schedule

Submission Guidelines

The organizers of HELINA 2021 welcome original presentations in the following categories:

1. Full research papers should be focused on reporting mature research results. Papers should be between 5 and 8 pages in length (excluding references) and will be subject to a rigorous double-blind peer-reviewed evaluation. Accepted full research papers will be published in a special edition of the Journal of Health Informatics in Africa (http://www.jhia-online.org).
2. Work in progress papers (articles between 5 and 8 pages) should be focused on reporting on preliminary research results. Papers should be between 5 and 8 pages in length and will be subject to a double-blind peer-reviewed evaluation. Accepted work in progress papers will be published electronically in the conference proceedings with an ISBN number on the HELINA website.
3. Case studies and experience papers (reports on e-Health interventions and implementations or lessons learned, 1-2 page abstract) should focus on presenting new ideas, report on digital health/e-Health interventions, implementations or lessons learned in order to provoke discussions amongst conference delegates. A 1 to 2-page abstract detailing the content that will be presented at the conference should be submitted. All abstracts will be subject to a double-blind peer-review evaluation. Accepted abstracts will be published electronically in the conference proceedings with an ISBN number on the HELINA website.
4. Panel Discussion: The panel session leader should submit a 3-5 page abstract with an overall description of the e-Health topic of discussion in conformity with the theme of the conference, followed by a brief outline (up to 4 paragraphs) of each of the panelist's topic of discussion. A total of 4-5 panelists should be included in the abstract and each panelist should aim to submit a differerent but complementary perspective of the main topic but avoid duplicative content. All panel session abstracts will be subject to a double-blind peer-review evaluation. Accepted abstracts will be published electronically in the conference proceedings with an ISBN number on the HELINA website. All members of the panel must register for and attend the conference. Panel sessions will typically be 45-60 minutes.
5. Pre-conference workshop: A 1-2 page abstract describing the workshop. The typical structure should include a Background/Introduction, Learning Objectives, Audience/Participants, Learning Style/Approach, Learning Outcomes and Materials. A pre-conference workshop should provide participants (mainly early career) with an opportunity to extend their knowledge and strengthen their skills in key topics on e-Health. It should stimulate discussion and share practical experience from innovative digital health solutions, approaches and policies in the field aimed at building capacity of the participants in an environment that allows for in-depth interaction. All Pre-conference  abstracts will be subject to a double-blind peer-review evaluation. Workshops will typically be half-a-day. A full-day's workshop may be considered in some cases.

Papers may be submitted in English or French and full research papers should not have been submitted to other conferences or journals. Submissions exceeding the maximum page length specified above will be rejected immediately without review. For an accepted submission to be published, at least one of the authors must register for the conference and present the accepted paper.  

The HELINA 2020/21 online paper submission system on https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=helina2021 must be used. The paper submission template found on the website, provides detailed instructions for authors aligned with the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts to Biomedical Journals (ICMJE | Recommendations | Preparing a Manuscript for Submission to a Medical Journal).

List of Topics

• Digital health initiatives and implementations for public health emergencies, clinical care and surveillance
• Maturity models, approaches and assessment tools for digital health evaluation
• Community-level digital health solutions in public health emergencies
• Health information exchange: Open standards, interoperability, data privacy and security, ethical considerations, policy & governance issues including legal and regulatory.
• Open Source Software in healthcare delivery, surveillance and public health emergencies
• eLearning and digital health training for capacity building
• Innovations for remote patient monitoring and care (Telemedicine)
• Data science: big data and analytics in healthcare, surveillance and public health emergencies

Committees

Conference Chair: 

• Dr. Tom Oluoch (hcs@helina-online.org)

Scientific Program Committee

• Prof. Nicky Mostert (SPC Chair) - spc@helina-online.org
• Dr. Vincent Kiberu (Co-Chair)
• Prof. Graham Wright (Member)
• Prof. Georges Nguefack-Tsague (Member)
• Dr. Frances B. da-Costa Vroom (Member)
• Priscilla Balirwa (Member)

Local Organizing committee

• Paul Mbaka (Chair of the LOC) - hcs@helina-online.org
• Jonathan Mpango
• Joan Nakibuuka
• Kaye Milton
• Ausse Kalega
• Haron Gichuhi
• Carol Kamasaka

Publication

HELINA 2021 Conference proceedings will be published in Journal of Health Informatics in Africa (https://www.jhia-online.org/index.php/jhia) 

Venue

This will be a virtual conference and the link for virtual participation will be shared here. Please register at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=helina2021

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to hcs@helina-online.org 

Sponsors