With the objective of discussing the responsibilities of the Advisory and Executive Committees of the Virtual Health Library on Professional Health Education (EPS VHL), as well as to generate an exchange of research experiences among the Escolas Técnicas do Sistema Único de Saúde (ETSUS – Technical Schools of the Unified Health System) that compose the SUS Technical School Network (RET-SUS), the Escola Politécnica de Saúde Joaquim Venâncio (Polytechnic School of Health Joaquim Venâncio) of the Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (EPSJV/Fiocruz) organized and hosted the sixth edition of the meeting that took place on August 22 and 23 of this year, with the presence of 30 of the 41 institutions that compose the RET-SUS.
According to Creusa Figueira, Coordinator of the Executive Secretariat of the EPS VHL, “the idea was to promote integration and announce the advances in the use of the EPS VHL, updating the concepts that circulate in the field of Professional Health Education. The meeting is a moment for reflection, to guide ourselves in our purpose of transforming the EPS VHL into a living organism, thus contributing to the dissemination of critical information”.
BIREME, represented by its Director, Dr. Diego González, participated in the debate that focused on the Virtual Health Library in the current context. This debate was also attended by Viviane Veiga, Coordinator of the Fiocruz Library Network, and Anakeila Stauffer, Director of the EPSJV/Fiocruz.
“It is important that the EPS VHL reaches a good level of updating of its collection of information sources (products and services), so that it can develop and offer to its user community other products that contribute significantly to the formulation of policies, strategies and decisions informed by the best evidence and knowledge available, in all fields of health”, stated Dr. González.
Viviane Veiga, Coordinator of the Fiocruz Library Network, highlighted that “all the work undertaken by the libraries and cooperating centers in the network follow the principle of rendering information available to users. However, it is not enough to provide information, we must certify its quality”.
At the end of the debate, Anakeila Stauffer, Director of the EPSJV/Fiocruz, remarked that “discussing politics and health education in the Brazilian context is a way of placing critical thinking and reflection in the VHLs and, consequently in the RET-SUS, with regard to training possibilities in professional health education”.
Other debates also took place, as well as a discussion of the challenges faced by the VHL in the aspects of material insertion, training, advertising of the platform and the importance of an institutional memory.
About the VHL Professional Health Education
The Virtual Health Library on Professional Health Education (EPS VHL) is a project led by the Escola Politécnica de Saúde Joaquim Venâncio – Fiocruz and the Instituto de Comunicação, Informação Científica e Tecnológica em Saúde (ICICT/Fiocruz – Institute of Communication and Scientific and Technological Health Information), with the main objective of providing access and stimulating use of scientific and technical information related to Professional Health Education in Brazil.
The VHL has an Advisory Committee composed of institutions addressing the theme in the country, listed in the VHL website, of the Network of SUS Technical Schools (RET-SUS) and the technical and methodological support of BIREME/PAHO/WHO.
Its portal offers a database of bibliographic data with approximately 5.764 monographic records, articles and theses, of which over 4.500 are available in full text, with documents addressing the themes of education, work, Unified Health System (SUS), professional education, health, learning, teaching, etc. Furthermore, the portal selects, publishes and links websites, events, news and other material of interest on the theme of professional health education.
The EPS VHL has been functioning as a network for over 10 years, and since 2012 it has been holding annual meetings of its Advisory and Executive Committees, in the process of continually expanding and improving itself.
Reference source
EPSJV realiza encontro da Biblioteca Virtual em Educação Profissional em Saúde. Escola Politécnica de Saúde Joaquim Venâncio da Fiocruz. 28 de setembro de 2018. Available from: http://www.epsjv.fiocruz.br/noticias/acontece-na-epsjv/epsjv-realiza-encontro-da-biblioteca-virtual-em-educacao-profissional-em (in Portuguese)
Biblioteca Virtual Educação Profissional em Saúde – http://www.bvseps.icict.fiocruz.br/ (in Portuguese)