On Saturday, November 7, the World Health Organization declared Sierra Leone Ebola-free . Hundreds flooded the streets of Freetown to celebrate and pay tribute to those whose lives were lost during the outbreak. I read about the celebrations online with joy and happiness—they’d finally made it. I could almost hear the drums playing from North Carolina. Over the past year during my travels to Freetown, I’ve observed the struggles and hardships...

The Ebola outbreak of West Africa didn’t hit overnight like a tsunami or earthquake—rather, the disaster gradually took over the region beginning in December 2013, really gaining speed in late summer of 2014. Along the way, weaknesses in health systems, including support to frontline health workers, were exposed, accelerating the spread of the virus. Like many in the field of global health and development, my colleagues and I at IntraHealth...

A few months ago, I traveled to Liberia for the DHIS 2 & iHRIS Interoperability Academy , where we worked with West African developers, Ministry of Health and Social Welfare officials, and human resources managers on using health information system data to improve family planning services. I didn’t realize at the time that those technologies were going to play a key role in Liberia’s Ebola response.Today I can’t help but think about my colleagues...

My family has always valued the art of storytelling and maintaining our oral history through generations. I remembered that as I stood in line for lunch one day at the DHIS2 & iHRIS Interoperability Academy in Monrovia, Liberia, this month, when one of the data managers from Cape Mount County remarked, “Data tell stories.” The academy was the first of its kind, the beginning of what I hope is a long story about harnessing the power of health...

The global agenda is clear: universal health coverage. And as we heard at the Third Global Forum on Human Resources for Health , a strong, qualified health workforce is essential to achieving this goal. But how do we create a strong global health workforce that can provide care to all 7 billion of us? One of the keys is information—reliable, accurate information on health workers’ skills and qualifications. Data on individual health workers’...