The visit of the Executive Undersecretary for Administrative Affairs of Brazil’s Ministry of Health (MS), Luiz Tadeu Villela Blumm, and the team from the General Coordination of Documentation and Information (CGDI) and People Management to BIREME’s facilities on August 4th was aimed at strengthening the institutional relationship with the Center and highlighting the technical cooperation actions under the sixth Addendum to the Cooperation Agreement 95 (TA6/TC95) with the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) Brazil and with which BIREME cooperates to produce results specific to the management of and access to scientific evidence information.
The Undersecretary stated that his interest in getting to know BIREME and its products and services up close came from the information he received about the historic and effective cooperation relationship that the Center maintains with MS by Shirlei Corrêa Rodrigues, Coordinator of Dissemination of Scientific and Technical Information in Health and Soraya Zacharias Drummond de Andrade, General Coordinator of Documentation and Information.
Consequently, the team comprising Shirley Rodrigues, Soraya Drummond de Andrade and Ademir Lapa, General Coordinator for People Management, visited the Center’s facilities accompanied by Diego González, Director, and his team through a virtual connection. Sandra Cristina Teixeira, responsible for the MS Virtual Health Library (VHL MS) accompanied the meeting virtually.
The session began with a presentation by the teams, followed by a presentation by the Director on the organizational structure of BIREME, its mission, work strategies, and its main scientific information and communication products and services in health. Next, Veronica Abdala, Manager of Cooperative Services and Production of Information Sources (PFI/SCI), presented the Virtual Health Library (VHL) and its information sources, explaining the centrality of networking as the strength that allows for expanding the model in dozens of country instances, themes and institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as beyond these borders, citing examples from Portuguese-speaking countries and the Network of Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicines (MTCI). Veronica also mentioned the Windows of Knowledge and Evidence Maps, recent developments that have been adopted in different topics.
Renato Murasaki, Manager of Information Sources and Information Methodologies and Technologies (AFI/MTI), spoke about BIREME’s work with WHO through the Global Index Medicus (GIM), the e-BlueInfo application, and recent developments to improve the quality of the collection of bibliographic health information. A particular theme that deserved attention from the Undersecretary was the proposal for a framework for measuring impact (Impact Measurement) that assesses the degree of users’ satisfaction of a particular service or portal. Murasaki also mentioned the news portal SAA Informa broadcast on MS televisions, developed for the Secretariat of Administrative Affairs based on the methodology used by BIREME in the PSI portal associated with the plasma TV located at BIREME.
Next, Lilian Calò, Coordinator of Scientific and Institutional Communication, presented the developments in these areas within the scope of the TC95, focusing on the first half of 2021. Lilian showed the advances obtained in institutional social networks in terms of interactions with followers, and the materials published in the BIREME Bulletin and on the institutional website. The launch of the Portuguese version of the Introductory Course on Scientific Communication, sponsored by the TC95, which has among those enrolled mainly young health professionals, deserves special mention. This prompted a comment by Soraya Zacharias Drummond de Andrade, to increase the dissemination of this course to the Ministry’s servers, in view of its relevance. At the end of her presentation, Lilian also mentioned the series of webinars on topics of information science and scientific communication, which took place in 2020 and suggested new topics for their potential inclusion in the second half of 2021.
The presentation of the Administrative and Planning Management (GA) was given by Marcia Y. Barretto (Coordinator of Information Technologies/GA), representing Silvia de Valentin (Manager Adm/GA). Marcia highlighted three aspects of the GA in TA6/TC95, i.e., support for the overall management of the project, in coordination with the technical areas of BIREME and PAHO/WHO Brazil; support in activities for the institutional strengthening of the CGDI and for the MS publisher; and support in providing infrastructure for the Ministry of Health’s Culture and Health Exhibition.
Marcia Barretto detailed the methodology through which the GA supports project management, including biweekly internal meetings with BIREME’s technical areas and periodic meetings with the CGDI, to present the results, which are also included in reports that make up the official Technical Report of PAHO Brazil.
The Undersecretary declared, at the end of the presentations, that he was very impressed with BIREME’s work, which he understands as a “Regional Library of Medicine, which has become a Latin American and Caribbean Center and now has global operations”.
This was followed by comments by Soraya Zacharias, Shirlei Rodrigues and the Director and staff of BIREME, in order to give more visibility to the P/S developed under the TA6/TC95.