Innovative Uses of Technology to Improve Health for Poor and Vulnerable People to be Explored at Rockefeller Foundation ...( Global Consensus and New Partnership...),Health

Global Consensus and New Partnerships Sought to Improve Health Systems in

Developing Countries

NEW YORK, June 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Accelerating innovative applications of emerging digital technologies to improve the health of poor and vulnerable people around the world -- a field known as eHealth -- will be the main topic of a major international conference hosted by the Rockefeller Foundation. The conference, Making the eHealth Connection: Global Partnerships, Local Solutions, will take place from July 13 to August 8, 2008.

Working with twelve leading organizations from the fields of global health, international development, and information and communications technology (ICT), the Rockefeller Foundation and its partners will bring together luminaries from industry, government, and civil society as well as donors and researchers at its Bellagio Center in Italy. The action-oriented agenda will focus on how deploying eHealth and ICT in health systems can improve the access, efficiency and quality of health services. Importantly, the conference focus is on the Global South-developing countries-where health infrastructure and capacity challenges loom large and eHealth technology, a lynchpin in modern health care systems, is at a tipping point. The conference will set the stage for long-term sustainable collaboration in the eHealth field.

"The emerging field of eHealth seeks to harness the power of ICT to strengthen health systems and help billions of people access affordable health care," said Judith Rodin, President of the Rockefeller Foundation. "We believe that Making the eHealth Connection, this summer's conference at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, can dramatically advance efforts to meet this critical challenge by building the necessary coalitions and resources."

Participants at the month-long Making the eHealth Connection conference will engage in intense high-level discussions that aim to adv
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