News

	Richard Horton, The Lancet: "Immediate access to reliable health information should be the hallmark of a just society" Date: Thursday, January 20, 2022 HIFA thanks Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, for continuing to champion the importance of access to reliable health information. In this week's issue of the journal he writes: 'The argument for immediate access to new health research findings is a straightforward matter of justice, not expediency. It's time for editors to say so clearly and forcefully.' Read in full
	HIFA Country Representative of the Year 2021: Goran Zangana, UK/Iraq Date: Tuesday, January 18, 2022 HIFA announces our HIFA Country Representative of the Year 2021: * Goran Zangana (UK/Iraq) * Goran Zangana is a medical doctor and Associate Research Fellow with the Middle East Research Institute, Iraq. He is currently based in the UK.
	Call for expressions of interest: HIFA and WHO seek a new operational partner for HIFA-Spanish Date: Thursday, November 11, 2021 (Español abajo) Global Healthcare Information Network (GHI-Net) and the World Health Organization (WHO) seek a new operational partner to further develop HIFA-Spanish. Start date: February 2022 (flexible) About HIFA-Spanish
	A new HIFA thematic discussion: Maintaining essential health services during the pandemic: What have we learned? Starts 15 November 2021 Date: Monday, November 8, 2021 We can now look back on 12-18 months of experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some countries have now entered a recovery phase with relatively few new cases and deaths (at least for now). Other countries continue to be facing heavy caseloads. Almost ever country has been affected and we have seen that essential health services - reproductive health, child health, mental health, non-communicable disease, surgery - have been severely disrupted in many ways.
	Press release: Healthcare Information For All (HIFA) launches new strategy to accelerate progress towards universal access to reliable healthcare information Date: Monday, October 25, 2021 COVID-19 has underlined the urgent need to accelerate progress towards universal access to reliable healthcare information. Never before has everyone been so aware of the need for reliable healthcare information, and yet so vulnerable to misinformation.
	Learning for quality health services: A new thematic discussion on HIFA Date: Monday, June 21, 2021 We are delighted to announce a new thematic discussion on the HIFA forums - Learning for quality health services - supported by the WHO Global Learning Laboratory (GLL) for Quality UHC.
	HIFA: Maintaining essential health services during the pandemic: Deep dive, 10 May-25 June 2021 Date: Wednesday, May 5, 2021 Starting on 10 May HIFA is hosting a 'deep-dive' exploration on how to maintain essential health services: reproductive health, child health, mental health, non-communicable diseases, surgery, emergency care. Throughout we shall include a focus on vulnerable people as well as the general population. These explorations will unfold week by week over 6 weeks, guided by an expert working group of representatives of WHO and other organisations. The work is supported by WHO.
	HIFA announces coordination team for Country Representatives Date: Saturday, April 3, 2021 / /-->*/
	Call for working group members: Learning for quality health services Date: Tuesday, March 9, 2021 Quality of health services is critical to achieving universal health coverage (UHC). Overall, between 5.7 and 8.4 million deaths are attributed to poor quality care each year in low- and middle-income countries, accounting for up to 15% of overall deaths in these countries. Improving access to health services must go hand-in-hand with improving the quality of these services. Further, poor quality health services - particularly unsafe care - can decrease people's trust in the health system.
	Tomislav Mestrovic (Croatia): HIFA Country Representative of the Year 2020 Date: Saturday, February 13, 2021 The HIFA Steering Group is delighted to announce the winners of our HIFA Country Representative of the Year 2020 awards. First we would like to say how grateful we are to all our 266 Country Representatives for their invaluable volunteer work for HIFA. The overall winner is: Tomislav Mestrovic (Croatia). Congratulations Tomislav! See the 3-minute HIFA YouTube video where Tomislav shares his experience.