SL hosts over 600 delegates from 60 countries at Digital Health conference

The largest global digital health event this year, Digital Health Week 2018, will take place in Colombo on October 7 to 12.

Already over 600 delegates from over 60 countries have registered for the various conferences happening during the digital health week. http:// www.dhw2018.org

The organisers said in a media release that the Digital Health Week is a global event organized by the Health Informatics Society of Sri Lanka (HISSL), the Sri Lanka Medical Association (SLMA), the Commonwealth Medical Association ( CMA), the Commonwealth Centre for Digital Health (CWCDH), the Asia eHealth Information Network ( AeHIN), the I n t e r national Medical Informatics Association ( IMIA), the Asia Pacific Association for Medical Informatics ( APAMI), the World Health Organization ( WHO), Asian Development Bank (ADB), the University of Colombo and the Ministry of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine of Sri Lanka.

The Digital Health Week consists of six conferences:

Conference on Interoperable Digital Health for Universal Health Coverage and 6th General Assembly of the Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN): October 7-9.

Board Meeting and General Assembly of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA): October 7-8.

10th Biennial Conference of the Asia Pacific Association for Medical Informatics (APAMI 2018): October 9-11. Global Telehealth 2018 (GT2018): October 9-11. 3rd Commonwealth Digital Health Conference & Awards (CWDHC&A): October 12. Digital Health Sri Lanka 2018: October 12. Commonwealth Digital Health Expo 2018: October 9-12

The organisers said Digital Health Week 2018 would be the largest gathering of digital health professionals from around the world. All the above mentioned major international digital health organisations are coming to Sri Lanka because of the pioneering role that Sri Lanka is playing in Digital Health.

The Health Informatics Society of Sri Lanka, founded on 18 November 1998, traces its origins to the Medical Informatics Committee of the Sri Lankan Medical Association, established in January 1997. In 2007 on an initiative of the HISSL, the University of Colombo, established the Specialty Board in Biomedical Informatics that runs the MSc in Biomedical Informatics and MD in Health Informatics Courses in Sri Lanka that leads to board certification of specialists in the field of Health Informatics in the country. Sri Lanka is only the second country in the world, after USA, to recognize Health Informatics as a medical specialty. Over the past decade Sri Lanka’s eHealth ecosystem has grown around the 120 g raduat e s of the above-mentioned courses.