V International Workshop on e-Health in Emerging Economies

The Fifth International Workshop on e-Health in Emerging Economies (IWEEE) is taking place in Granada, Spain on January 11, 2012. This is a biannual meeting held in Europe and in Latin America. IWEEE promotes the use of open source software in providing healthcare in developing countries and emerging economies. 

This year's conference has been organized by GNUSolidario, the European Federation for Medical Informatics Libre/Free Open Source Working Group (EFMI LIFOSS WG), and the International Medical Informatics Association's (IMIA OSWG).

Spain was chosen as the site of the conference due to its central geographical location. Spain links Africa, Europe and the Americas.

The theme for this year's conference is "Commitment". It is time for individuals, public administrations and governments to adopt open source software in public health, so we can all have access to good quality health care.

Previous IWEEE conferences have been a success.The United Nations University IIGH is now an active member of the GNU Health community, and Paraguay started the migration to open source software their health regional regions ( Project Ñamo Pyahu ) after attending IWEEE workshops.

Some of the topics for discussion at this year's conference :

• Free software in the health sector
• e-Health in Public Health
• Need for Free Standards in e-Health

IWEEE is not a pure technical conference. It will focus on the human factor and in raising awareness about the actual situation. We will discuss the tools that we can provide today to doctors and institutions to improve their habitants health and education.

The workshop promotes Open Source Software as one of the main pillars for a sustainable framework for providing e-health and education for the developing and least developed countries.

There will not be parallel conferences. All delegates will be able to assist and participate in the workshops that they find of interest. Communication among delegates is key.

More information about the event is available on the IWEEE website.

In addition to the IWEEE conference January, the Open Source World
 Conference will be held in
 Granada on Jan. 12 and 13. This will enable participants to visit both events.