News & Updates

The Research Triangle area of North Carolina is named for three world-class universities that form a triangle of academic and research excellence: University of North Carolina (UNC), Duke University, and North Carolina State University. We’re lucky at IntraHealth International that our headquarters falls right in the middle of them. I came to IntraHealth in the fall of 2013, after 20 years at UNC, in part to figure out how to engage these...

The latest roadmap for iHRIS is here: https://trello.com/b/PnyMpHsl/ihris-roadmapThe developer community is asking for any and all feedback on features that you want to see in iHRIS Manage, Train, and Qualify. Are there features you want to see in the iHRIS suite? Are the new features you need for your use cases prioritized? Is there an old feature you want changed or upgraded? Please reply in the Google Group! https://groups.google.com/forum/#...

We have some special news. There is now an open JIRA issue tracker for the iHRIS suite of workforce management tools at https://rt.ihris.org/jira/login.jsp Anyone can sign up for an account to watch or create an issue, such as to log a bug or request a feature. IntraHealth has been using JIRA since late last year at IntraHealth and have had a great experience with it. For important announcements, please makes sure to sign-up for the Google Group...

I used to tell colleagues I was better at discussing the benefits of breastfeeding and handwashing than health information systems. I have a background in natural childbirth instruction and community-based development, and when I started working in digital health a few years ago, I missed the human aspects of global health. I had a shiny new master’s degree in public health but felt lost in the conversations about canonical data models and...

Lalita Chauhan starts her day early to the sound of an alarm from her phone. A couple of years ago, she could not have imagined starting her day in such a high-tech way, much less owning a smartphone. As an ASHA (or accredited social health activist) in rural India, Lalita and other community health workers are benefitting from the country’s Digital India initiative, whereby the national government is transitioning paper-based services to digital...

We know that interoperability is key to improving the effectiveness and resilience of health information systems. As we've said before, it’s crucial to overcoming the fragmented and proprietary global health information systems we have today, and can allow governments and their stakeholders to make the most of their data, including extending, upgrading, and preserving it. Yet how do we move from that lofty goal to practical action? For us at...

Predictive analytics, rapid diagnostics, and portable, personal medical records promise a future where health systems are stronger and more efficient, and where anyone can live a longer, healthier, fuller life. But one of the prerequisites for this promised transformation is that health systems—whether they’re for diagnostics or patient records or lab results—are interoperable, meaning they can quickly and seamlessly exchange data using open...

SwitchPoint 2018 was an inspiring, passionate, and delightful indulgence: Spending two days in lush Saxapahaw, North Carolina, thinking about big ideas and learning from leading experts in small group sessions in between performance art and live music shows felt like such a departure from Conference As Usual. I felt space opening up in my brain to start really processing what the speakers were saying—the real act and action of listening versus...

Thousands of students now have 24/7 digital access to academic materials thanks to two new digital libraries. Until now, thousands of Uganda’s medical, nursing, health management, and allied health students had to share a small, cramped library with too few resources for the growing number of students. Many students were simply unable to check out the reference and academic materials needed to study effectively for their coursework and exams...

Facebook announced in January that WhatsApp has more than 1.5 billion monthly active users—20% of the world’s population!—who send more than 60 billion messages every day. Of course, quickly messaging people via computing technology is not new. However, this communications medium could revolutionize the way we communicate with health workers and their clients. To give you a sense of WhatsApp’s reach and potential for improving global health: In...