Administrative information about HELINA-L	8 April 1999 Mikko Korpela
	Electronic mailing list on Health Informatics in Africa

The HELINA-L mailing list was created in 1994 to implement a recommendation of the First International Working Conference on Health Informatics in Africa, HELINA'93, in coordination with the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). The list administration was entrusted to Dr. Mikko Korpela who had been in charge of the HELINA'93 Overseas Bureau.

During the next conference, HELINA'96, IMIA arranged a meeting to discuss the future organizational form of health informatics interest in Africa. By that time, there was only one IMIA member society in Africa, namely the South African Health Informatics Association (SAHIA). Representatives from more than ten countries expressed their interest of establishing new national societies or associations. It would then be possible to create a regional body under the auspices of the IMIA, consisting of the national societies. This is the model used in Europe, Latin America and Asia-Pacific also.

The future form of regional collaboration will be discussed in HELINA'99. The role and administration of the HELINA-L mailing list and web pages may also change if so decided by the regional representatives.

The mailing list can be used to distributing news, reports, comments, inquiries, etc. regarding the use of information and communications technologies in healthcare in Africa. The liveliness of the list depends solely on the members, while the list administrator is not in the position to actively search for contributions. You are most welcome to submit your own news, reports, comments and inquiries!