HEALTH INFORMATICS IN AFRICA

HELINA is a young region created in 1993 and has at present the objective:

to get African countries to develop their National Health Informatics Societies so that they can qualify to join the World of Health Informatics by becoming a member of IMIA. This step will make them automatic members of HELINA.

HELINA subscribes in full with the IMIA vision which is that there will be a world-wide systems approach for healthcare. 

Clinicians, researchers, patients and people in general will be supported by informatics tools, processes and behaviours that make it easy to do the right thing, in the right way, at the right time to improve healthcare for all. This systems approach will incorporate and integrate research, clinical care and public health.

HELINA arose out of the First International Working Conference on Health Informatics in Africa,

• HELINA'93, held in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, in 19-23 April 1993, organized by OAU-NG and UEF-FI under the auspices of IMIA. In the closing session of HELINA'93, it was proposed that this successful conference should be periodically organised and along the lines of HELINA'93.
• HELINA 96 was held in South Africa, HELINA 99 took place in Zimbabwe,
• HELINA 2007 in Mali, and
• HELINA 2009 in Côte dIvoire.
• HELINA 2011 in Cameroon.