On June 30th, the first National Meeting of the Paraguay VHL was held in person in Paraguay, the first since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The new Representative of PAHO/WHO Paraguay, Dr. Marcelo Korc, and the consultant Econ were present at the meeting. Alejandra Carrillo, who will be the counterpart for the VHL, Dr. José Luis Molinas, Director General of the National Institute of Health, Dr. Sebastián Garcia, Director of the Department of Evidence and Intelligence for Action in Health and interim Director of BIREME/ PAHO/WHO, and Juliana Sousa, supervisor of the Monitoring of VHL Instances and Projects area at BIREME, as well as authorities from the Ministry of Health, librarians, and computer scientists from the Institutions that make up the VHL Network of Paraguay.
The meeting is the result of an initiative of the National Health Library, National Coordinating Center of the Virtual Health Library Network of Paraguay (VHL-PY), with the Technical Cooperation of PAHO/WHO, which organizes the First National Meeting, and took place in the Auditorium Hall of the National Institute of Health.The agenda is available.
The purpose of the meeting was to strengthen the Network of Health Libraries of Paraguay (REDISAL) and to inform and analyze the development of the VHL-PY, a commitment assumed by the institutions that make up the Network, for the maintenance and sustainability of the VHL-PY. Also, within the framework of the meeting, a tribute of recognition was made to Mrs. Epifanía Gómez in gratitude for her valuable work and support for the development and implementation of the Virtual Health Library in Paraguay.
During the meeting, Dr. Sebastián Garcia shared the technical cooperation actions developed with BIREME in recent years to strengthen the VHL-PY. Highlighting the main results of the Technical Visit of the Information and Knowledge Management Group of PWR PRYa BIREME in 2017 and the Mission carried out in 2018 in Asunción, which aimed to reactivate and strengthen the Library Network of Paraguay (REDISAL) and update the products and services of the VHL in Paraguay.
Juliana Sousa presented the results achieved since 2018 in line with the action plan that was defined with the VHL-PY team and the plans made with the VHL Network in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022, highlighting:
- Development of the National VHL portal;
- Hosting and technical support of the VHL on the BIREME servers;
- Methodological support for the management and updating of the contents in the portal;
- Commitment Act for the creation and formalization of the National Documentation Network on Health Sciences Information (REDISAL) for participation in the development of the VHL-PY, signed on November 30, 2018;
- Development of Windows of Knowledge;
- Support in reviewing search strategies for topics;
- Development of the National Database of Paraguay (BDNPAR) and the Document Selection Guide for the database; and
- Development of the responsibilities matrix of the VHL for the organization of decentralized and online work.
As a result of the meeting and next steps for follow-up on the VHL-PY, the coordination of the VHL and the PAHO Paraguay team agreed that the maturity evaluation instrument will be implemented. At the end of July/beginning of August, to evaluate the maturity level of the VHL and to identify the quality of its products and services, as well as aspects that must be developed for the continuous improvement of the VHL, the idea is to carry out an exhaustive review of the previous plan, in order to, together with BIREME, define the new action plan for the Paraguay VHL, which also integrates the INS Strengthening Plan.
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Strengthening capacities in health scholarly communication in Paraguay. BIREME Bulletin n° 36. Available at: https://boletin.bireme.org/en/2019/09/29/strengthening-capacities-in-health-scholarly-communication-in-paraguay/
Strengthening national networks of information management: Paraguay. BIREME Bulletin n° 24. Available at: https://boletin.bireme.org/en/2018/09/30/strengthening-national-networks-of-information-management-paraguay/
Strengthening information and knowledge management in Paraguay – one of the key PAHO/WHO countries. BIREME Bulletin n° 17. Available at: https://boletin.bireme.org/en/2018/03/01/strengthening-information-and-knowledge-management-in-paraguay-one-of-the-key-pahowho-countries/