Between August 26 and 30, 2024, the director of the Pan American Health Otagnization’s Department of Evidence and Intelligence for Action in Health (EIH/PAHO), Sebastián García Saisó, held a series of strategic meetings at BIREME. With a work agenda focused on technical activities for the Center’s digital transformation, Sebastián Saisó began his activities at BIREME on Tuesday (27) morning, when he was welcomed by João Paulo Souza, director of BIREME and the entire team, and had the opportunity to interact with everyone and align expectations for the following days.
“It is a pleasure to be at BIREME once again, meeting with the teams and participating in the Scientific and Advisory Committees,” said the director during his welcome. “We are living through an important moment for public health in the Americas, in which we are prioritizing the construction of more resilient health systems, capable not only of facing current and upcoming challenges, but above all of incorporating all the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a priority for PAHO, and BIREME plays a central role in this process.”
Discussions and strategic recommendations were on the agenda. The director Sebastián, with João Paulo and the BIREME leadership team, reviewed the week’s schedule, the main activities highlighted and the progress of the implementation of the BIREME Strategy 2023-2025, which has as its central pillar the acceleration of the digital transformation of health information products and services developed by technical cooperation projects. The exchanges ranged from mapping advanced functionalities in digital libraries to prioritizing innovations such as the incorporation of natural language models (LLMs) and emerging technologies for personalization and virtual reality.
New projects for digital transformation
Several strategic projects were discussed and advanced during the meetings, including those that have already implemented advanced technology resources or agile management methods:
- LILACS Plus: This project aims to increase the visibility of scientific production in Latin America and the Caribbean through an integrated database that already has approximately 2 million scientific articles.
- Strengthening the Second Formative Opinion program: Focused on health professionals, the project aims to improve the platform and methods for generating evidence-based questions and answers, ensuring that the information is adapted to the local context and available in multiple formats and platforms.
- Decision aids for the lay population: Development of a new health decision support tool aimed at the general public, which facilitates access to personalized and relevant information based on the best available scientific evidence.
- WHO Global Library of Traditional Medicines: Ongoing project that envisages the creation and integration of six regional portals and country-specific pages for thematic digital libraries, as well as the integration of various databases and information products, facilitating access and strengthening the global dissemination of knowledge on traditional medicines.
Commitment to health and innovation
During the working week, which included the annual sessions of the Centre’s Governance Committees, the teams had the opportunity to reaffirm their commitment to BIREME’s mission of promoting health through access to scientific and technical information, and to recognize its leading position in the digital transformation in the field of health information.
The X Session of the Scientific Committee and the XIII Session of the Advisory Committee counted on the effective participation of Sebastián, from the opening to the closing of the sessions, thus supporting the discussions and effectively encouraging the Committees members to contribute with recommendations for the sustainability, institutional strengthening and technical cooperation program of BIREME for the countries of the Region. The members of the Committees were unanimous in their recognition of the results and progress achieved by BIREME in the last almost two years, which was also highlighted by Saisó.
Throughout the week, the EIH director emphasized the importance of continuing with the implementation of the BIREME 2023-2025 Strategy, highlighting the opportunities for integrating BIREME into PAHO’s major public health topics. In several exchanges, João Paulo Souza and Sebastián García Saisó also noted the need to document BIREME’s digital transformation experiences well, in the appropriate formats, including scientific papers, to ensure that advances are widely recognized and shared.
Regarding the next steps, he added: “Dr. Jarbas Barbosa has requested BIREME’s presence at the 61st PAHO Directing Council, which will take place between the end of September and the beginning of October 2024. This is an opportunity for all countries to learn more about the Center’s work, showing the Ministries of Health the potential of BIREME to support the development of more resilient health systems. This is because information and scientific evidence, and therefore BIREME, are at the heart of building the public policies and decision-making that countries need in order to really move forward with the agenda of strengthening the health sector. This is an excellent moment for BIREME and for scientific evidence.”
The work agenda ended on Thursday (29) with Sebastián acknowledging the director and BIREME teams, who also considered his presence to be of great importance in contributing to everyone’s commitment and motivation.