Thai Health Experts and Health Institutions Databases : Acquisition Kit

Network for WHO Collaborating Centres and Centres of Expertise in Thailand (NEW-CCET)

Thai Health Experts and Health Institutions Databases : Acquisition kit

Thai Health Experts and Health Institutions Data bases

Background

The Royal Thai Government (RToG), in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) have established The Network For WHO Collaborating Centres (WHO CCs) and centres of Expertise in Thailand (NEW-CCET) since the 2004-2005 biennium. As of March 2008, 33 institutions have been designated as WHO CCs in Thailand. The other 37 NEW-CCET member institutions belong to the Centres of Expertise category. Those Centres are our country resources in terms of health information, services, research programmes and training activities. They also serve as focal points for excellent health manpower resources in Thailand. Besides, a significant number of health experts are also distributed around the country at various health institutions. Those institutions and experts, together form the core of total health assets of Thailand. With this fact, it is anticipated that Thailand will become a technical hub in health and health related fields soon.

It is Thailand’s national interest to identify and keep tract of its national assets in health and health related fields. Meanwhile, knowledge and expertise of Thai health experts should also become a valuable resource for other WHO member states and other international organizations. With this background, the WHO Country Office (WCO) in collaboration with the NEW-CCET support a mapping exercise to identify and keep record of health experts through the development of NEW-CCET databases of Thai expertise at both individual and institutional levels.

With assistance from many educational institutions and government agencies in Thailand, the development of databases linking up with the NEW-CCET website is promoted. Moreover, WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia (WHO SEARO) in New Delhi, India realized that the methods of health expert resource identification and mobilization efforts pioneering in Thailand should be replicated to the

whole WHO South-East Asia region. Therefore, WHO SEARO decided to develop the new database system with regional perspectives so that it can be used throughout the whole region and beyond.

Purpose and Strategy

The main purpose is to promote the recognition of our Thai health experts and to keep the information current and comprehensive. In other words, the important key to a successful information system is its accuracy, completeness, comprehensiveness, timeliness, and so on. In those contexts, identification, selection and collection of information are given the priority. The direct outreach to the health experts and the member institutions is used as the primary strategy for information gathering. In addition, we set up our new website (www.new- ccet.org) to promote the access to the institutional profiles and individual health experts in Thailand at any time from any places throughout the world. The interested parties could search for names and addresses of the needful consultant(s) by areas of expertise and etc. It will be less time consuming than before. The self updated information is designed so that only the information owners could manage it.

Beneficiaries

The databases and NEW-CCET website are developed in order to serve both sides, the information owners and users. In the past while the information system and technology had been managed poorly, the manual hard copy instead of electronic collection of database had been used. This technique is not favorable for its updating and dissemination. The information owners spend too much time to respond to any request for data especially to fill up forms of several designs. Henceforth many requests were not responded leading to communication breakdown. Many times when the Thai experts were needed for consultancy the references depended on personal contact through friends or authorized personnel only. These people may have neither updated nor comprehensive views on the experts and institutions so that they always recommend repeated few people already known to them to serve as consultants. In this regard the fresh

experts and institutions may lost opportunity to be recruited for internationally utilized.

Nowadays the electronic Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is globally used. The electronic database system is very convenient to transfer information with less time and cost consuming. Once the data is recorded it needs less time and effort to be updated and transferred. The database can be transferred into MS word that is used as an attachment with any correspondences. In this case the global communications are very much possible across the continents within few minutes of contact. The NEW-CCET acts as a coordinator for the collective leadership in the Health Management Information System (HMIS) on Thai expertise. The curriculum vitae (CV) of Thai experts and institutional profiles of the member institutions are recorded in the website of the network. Moreover it can be linked with other websites for further information and purposes. So far many websites have been created by the health organizations both governmental and non-governmental. They contain information on researchers who received financial supports from the individual organizations and etc. Such linkages with the other websites are anticipated to provide broader view of health messages and experts.

The NEW-CCET databases serve as a “who’s who” of Thai experts and institutional profiles. The areas of expertise concerning health are applied using the key words like any library or communication systems. The information could be accessed through internet via the NEW-CCET website. Only the information owner is authorized to update his/her own data. Nobody can edit the profile.

In conclusion the NEW-CCET website containing expert databases is benefited to the information owners as well as the searchers for consultancy. Both sides can communicate directly through internet to find out more detailed information or conditions regarding the consultancy arrangement and etc. The other Thai experts or institutions those by chance are not included in the NEW-CCET database can be search through the web-links. At this moment the NEW-CCET welcome everyone who has had achieved any performance(s) on health intervention, research, training, or providing technical consultancy to do data entry of his/her CV. The member institutions are also requested to provide the institution profiles and

pay attention on their own editing process. The number of visits to the website is recorded.

Network Membership

In March 2008 thirty three health institutions in Thailand have been designated as WHO CCs by the World Health Organization. All of them are members of the NEW-CCET. Besides the other 37 institutions have been members under the category of the National centres of expertise (CEs). The Thai health expert database system is developed and modified to meet the highest professional standards by areas of expertise. The other interested parties are invited to apply for membership through the network secretariat.

Contact person

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Orapin Singhadej

Secretary-General

NEW-CCET

Faculty of Public Health, Mahidol University

420/1 Rajavithi Road, Rajathawe

Bangkok 10400, Thailand

Tel. +66 2354 8190 Fax. +66 2354 8191

E-mail : [email protected]

[email protected]