Representatives of the Virtual Health Library (VHL) from the Caribbean countries present at the Conferencia Anual de la Asociación de Bibliotecas Universitarias, de Investigación e Institucionales del Caribe (ACURIL 2017) gathered in order to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Center and the role played by BIREME in the dissemination of health information through the VHL.
DeCS is a controlled and structured vocabulary in health in English, Portuguese and Spanish. BIREME is responsible for the translation into Portuguese and the review of the Spanish translation, together with the Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad de Chile (for Latin American and Caribbean Spanish) and with the Biblioteca Nacional de Ciencias de la Salud del Instituto de Salud Carlos III (for European Spanish). It also makes hierarchical modifications of MeSH and organizes its terms. Since 2016, BIREME has enabled searches in the VHL with MeSH terms in French due to its translation by the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (Inserm).
In order to train the Network of Reference Professionals of the Virtual Health Library and other specialists on building search strategies, BIREME and Instituto Nacional do Câncer (INCA) organized the 1st Advanced Workshop Search Strategies on Health Information. The workshop was held on the framework of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of BIREME and the 80th anniversary of INCA. The initiative is one of the cooperation projects established with the Brazilian Ministry of Health.
The development of projects, products and services for access of health information characterizes the institutional relations with Fiocruz and ANVISA, among other historic supporters of BIREME/PAHO/WHO. Regarding Fiocruz, the main institutional and thematic fora are the VHL, together with REBEC, ProQualis and SciELO Livros. With ANVISA, the list includes the Portal do Conhecimento, Comunidade Virtual em Vigilância Sanitária, Legislação em Vigilância Sanitária and the Sistema de Gerenciamento Eletrônico de Bulas, among others.
The LILACS Network includes 27 Latin American and Caribbean (LA&C) countries, 937 journals and more than 770 thousand documents. In order to extend and strengthen the bibliographic control of the literature produced in LA&C, BIREME organized virtual meetings on coordination and indexing to the LILACS database Cooperation Network.
The Rede de Alimentação e Nutrição do Sistema Único de Saúde (RedeNutri), established in 2009, is a virtual place that allows users to reflect upon and evaluate the results of the implementation of the Política Nacional de Alimentação e Nutrição [National Food and Nutrition Policy] (PNAN) of the Brazilian Ministry of Health. The Online Collaborative Space establishes itself as a community of good practices in eating and nutrition habits at the Unified Health System in Brazil (SUS), gathering professionals from several areas, researchers and other stakeholders.
The Technical Unit of Human Resources in Health at PAHO/WHO Brazil, together with BIREME, continues to develop a project aiming to identify and analyze scientific and technical information published on the main international and regional indexes on human resources in health. The results of this project will support the formulation of a regional strategy on knowledge management for the area of human resources in health.
An initiative aligned to the WHO Strategy on Traditional Medicine (2014- 2023), has as main goal promoting visibility, access to, use and generation of scientific and education content and health data, in order to contribute to the promotion and development of Natural Medicine and Complementary Therapies in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is a technical cooperation agreement with PAHO/WHO Nicaragua and the Instituto de Medicina Natural y Terapias Complementarias de Nicaragua, with great potential of expanding to other countries of the region.
BIREME, as a specialized Center of the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization(PAHO/WHO) and the Knowledge Management Project of the area of Knowledge Management, Bioethics and Research department (KBR/PAHO), under the management of PAHO/WHO Assistant Director, work in close collaboration on themes of scientific communication in health, strengthening the health publications from the Region, and promoting capacities to improve the quality and quantity of scientific reports, besides making them widely available to healthcare professionals, researchers, students, and decision makers.
VHL is the technical cooperation model for information management coordinated by BIREME/PAHO/WHO, developed with the participation and collaboration of the networks, organizations and individuals of Latin American and Caribbean countries, and applied by other nations. In the countries, the VHL projects itself through national, thematic, and institutional fora with the purpose of enhancing visibility and promoting the use of scientific and technical knowledge, according to health priorities and information needs of users. In this context, RENICS – Red Nacional de Información en Ciências de la Salud de Argentina, turns 30 years old coordinated by the National Academy of Medicine with the support of the area of Knowledge Management of the country’s PAHO/WHO Representation.