The UOC's Faculty of Health Sciences was designated as a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre in the field of digital health in April 2018.
WHO Collaborating Centres are partner institutions of the WHO, and they work to help the organization achieve its goals. These institutions cooperate with the WHO in various activities, such as collecting and analysing data for the preparation of reports, organizing strategic meetings and providing support for the creation of guidelines.
The WHO currently has more than 800 collaborating centres in over 80 countries.
What do we do as a WHO Collaborating Centre?
Supporting WHO/PAHO to strengthen its telemedicine-related capacity building activities.
Supporting WHO/PAHO’s work on the implementation of the PAHO digital health strategy and in the development of telehealth-related tools for member states.
Terms of reference: the collaboration road map
The UOC and the PAHO/WHO have a shared objective: promoting digital health worldwide. The two institutions signed an initial agreement in 2015 aimed at promoting digital health in Latin America and the Caribbean. The agreement formalized the roles and responsibilities governing the cooperation between the two institutions.
As a result of this collaboration, the UOC's Faculty of Health Sciences was named a WHO Collaborating Centre on 10 April 2018.
The conditions of the collaboration are set out in the Terms of reference, a work plan covering the research and outreach projects, training, advisory services and mobilizations of resources to be carried out by the UOC as a WHO Collaborating Centre.
This work plan is the centre's road map, and covers a period of four years. The terms of reference currently include:
Supporting WHO/PAHO in the development of training materials and learning objects relating to telemedicine.
Providing technical support to WHO on the development of tools and technical documents relating to digital health
Development of tools and technical documents
Team
- Francesc Saigí, director of the collaborating centre, member of both the Faculty of Health Sciences and the UOC eHealth Center at the UOC.
- Alicia Aguilar, member of both the Faculty of Health Sciences and the UOC eHealth Center at the UOC.
- Carme Carrion, associate dean for research and member of the UOC Faculty of Health Sciences, and scientific coordinator of the UOC eHealth Center.
- Marina Bosque, member of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the UOC.
- Joan Torrent, member of both the Faculty of Economics and Business and the eHealth Center at the UOC.
- Ruben Nieto, member of both the Faculty of Health Sciences and the UOC eHealth Center at the UOC.
Previous periods (Terms of reference 2018 - 2021)
eHealth
Designing and validating a shared health model and studying how it can contribute to reduce social inequalities in health.
mHealth
Working on the identification of the main variables related to the development of mobile health (mHealth) in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Developing training and providing advice on the implementation of Telemedicine services.