HELINA stands for Health Informatics in Africa. It is the pan African Health Informatics Association and the Africa Region of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA). HELINA is officially registered under the Malian law.
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.
The first ever MEDINFO (the World Conference on Health Informatics of IMIA) hold in Africa
HELINA arose out of the First International Working Conference on Health Informatics in Africa,