Middle East and North African Health Informatics Association (MENAHIA): A New Opportunity for the Region

Riyad Alshammari; Najeeb Al-Shorbaji; Zakiuddin Ahmed; Zaid Al-Hamadan; Abdulwahhab Alshammari; Osama El Hassan; Dari Alhuwail; Salim Al Salmi; Eiman Al-Jafar; Hassan Ghazal

doi:10.1055/s-0039-1677896

Yearbook of Medical Informatics, Table of Contents

CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Yearb Med Inform 2019; 28(01): 292-296
DOI: 10.1055/s-0039-1677896

Information on IMIA Regions

Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart

Middle East and North African Health Informatics Association (MENAHIA): A New Opportunity for the Region

Riyad Alshammari

¹College of Public Health and Health Informatics, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Ministry of the National Guard- Health Affairs, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; President of the Saudi Health Informatics Association

,

Najeeb Al-Shorbaji

²President of the eHealth Development Association of Jordan

,

Zakiuddin Ahmed

³Program Director, RAHAH, King Saud University Project Director, Riphah Institute of Health Improvement & Safety CEO, Digital Care, Pakistan

,

Zaid Al-Hamadan

⁴Associate Professor, Jordan University of Science and Technology

,

Abdulwahhab Alshammari

⁵College of Applied Medical Sciences, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Ministry of the National Guard- Health Affairs, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

,

Osama El Hassan

⁶Vice-Chair of Emirates Health Informatics Society, Head of eHealth section at Dubai Health Authority, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

,

Dari Alhuwail

⁷Department of Information Science, College of Computing Sciences and Engineering, Kuwait University, Kuwait; Health Informatics Unit, Dasman Diabetes Institute, Kuwait

,

Salim Al Salmi

⁸Associate Deanship for Health Information Management Program, Oman College of Health Sciences, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

,

Eiman Al-Jafar

⁹Department of Health Informatics and Information Management, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Kuwait University, Kuwait.

,

Hassan Ghazal

¹⁰National Center for Scientific and Technological Research, Rabat, and President of the Moroccan Society for Telemedicine and eHealth, Rabat, Morocco

› Author Affiliations

Abstract

Summary

During the 2018 IMIA General Assembly (GA) held on Oct 2018 in Sri Lanka, a new organization, the Middle East and North African Health Informatics Association (MENAHIA) was established as a regional non-governmental organization to promote Health Informatics in the region. Health Informatics activities in applications, education, and research have been growing in the Middle East and North African region for many years. Over the past year, health informatics initiatives within the region focused on the education sector and the workforce. The need to enhance the education delivery and methods is essential in promoting Health Informatics in the region as well as establishing master programs in many countries within the region.

This paper provides an overview of the variety of initiatives that are occurring in the region and are endorsed by MENAHIA.

Keywords

Saudi Arabia - Pakistan - Jordan - United Arab Emirates - Morocco - Kuwait - Oman - Bahrain - Health Informatics - the Middle East

Full Text

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