November 2011

  • November 30, 2011

    Access for Everyone, Everywhere - Reflections from Day One of the International Conference on Family Planning

    Heather Johnson

    JHU∙CCP | Operations Manager

     

    Yesterday (November 29, 2011) marked the opening ceremonies of the second International Conference on Family Planning in Dakar, Senegal. The city of Dakar welcomed over 2,400 participants from 88 countries to the conference, which is being hosted by The Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Senegal’s Ministry of Health and Prevention. 

    At the Knowledge for Health (K4Health) Project, I’ve had the privilege to meet and work with many experts in the area of family planning/reproductive health (FP/RH). Already within the first day, I have seen many of these individuals here at the conference; some of them I am meeting in person for the first time. Beyond just matching names to faces, though, the real excitement of this conference comes from the camaraderie and common interests of the conference participants. Regardless of gender, class, nationality, professional title—everyone is at this conference to discuss the ways to meet family planning needs and improve people’s lives all over the world. I think every participant would agree that you can’t help but feel the excitement in the air. 

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  • November 30, 2011

    Commentary: "Sharing Knowledge" versus "Knowledge Management"

    Jay Liebowitz

    UMUC | Orkand Endowed Chair of Management & Technology

    By: Dr. Jay Liebowitz, Orkand Endowed Chair in Management and Technology, Graduate School of Management and Technology, University of Maryland University College

    I recently returned from the International Association for Computer Information Systems (IACIS) Annual Conference in Mobile, Alabama, and I heard an intriguing presentation by Dr. Robert Skovira (University Professor at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh).  One of his main thoughts is that when we think in terms of knowledge management (KM), we really should be using “verbs” versus “nouns”.  His feeling is that when you use a noun, we are referring to a “thing” instead of a “process”.  Often times, we aren’t really interested in improving the “thing”, but rather how can we enhance the “process”.  This idea started to stimulate my neurons and hence produce this Commentary.

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  • November 30, 2011

    2nd International Family Planning Conference Opens in Dakar, Senegal

    Barbara Ayotte

    Management Sciences for Health | Director of Strategic Communications

    Contributed from MSH Global Health Impact Blog by BARBARA AYOTTE on NOVEMBER 30, 2011

     

    Over 2,300 delegates, many colorfully dressed, gathered in Dakar, Senegal  at the jam-packed amphitheatre and two exterior tents of Le Meridien President for the start of this week’s 2nd International Family Planning Conference, sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Monica Kerrigan, of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said that one third of Africans live in francophone Africa, and yet it has been the most neglected area for family planning services. She praised Senegal for hosting the first family planning conference in French-speaking Africa and urged Senegal to use this opportunity to act boldly and make family planning an urgent priority.

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  • November 29, 2011

    An App for Family Planning

    Piers Bocock

    K4Health, JHU∙CCP | Project Director

    Piers Bocock, MBA, director of the K4Health (Knowledge for Health) project, is part of the Center for Communication Programs (CCP) contingent from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health  that will be attending the 2011 International Conference on Family Planning: Research and Practices.  

    He’ll be taking part in an auxiliary event that CCP is hosting on November 30 to launch a slate of new and updated family planning tools and resources developed as part of K4Health, a five-year USAID-funded initiative that aims to strengthen access to evidence-based information to improve health service delivery and health outcomes worldwide.

    The products use modern information and communication technology designed to help health care providers—especially those in isolated areas—share family planning information with their clients and connect them with appropriate health care services.  

    What’s on the agenda for the November 30 auxiliary event?
     
    We’re relaunching the latest edition (2011) of Family Planning: A Global Handbook for Providers, the seminal document on family planning, published by USAID, WHO and CCP. It has important changes, including community-based provision of injectable contraceptives.
     
    We’re going to be debuting Kindle and iPhone versions of the Handbook in French and English, which until now has been available only online and in hard copy. 
     
    We’re also launching an Android app for mobile phones with content pulled from the Handbook to help health providers identify the appropriate contraceptive for their patients. What we’re trying to do is use technology to make that process a lot easier. We’re not reinventing the wheel; we’re just leveraging content that’s already there.
     

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  • Health Innovations
    November 22, 2011

    Making Policy from the Ground Up - A Crowd Sourcing Strategy for HIV Prevention and Youth

    Stephen Goldstein

    JHU∙CCP | Senior Consultant

    Can a web-based, crowdsourcing technology project engage young people in developing AIDS policy? The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) hopes that its new CrowdOutAIDS.org site will prove that it can.

    UNAIDS launched the innovative, collaborative project in October. The project aims to create a new strategy on youth and HIV by and for young people in four steps: Connect, Share, Find Solutions, and Collective Action.

    Every day, 3,000 young people become infected with HIV, and many of the 5 million young people living with HIV are without access to treatment, according to UNAIDS.

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