---
title: IMIA Working Group Meeting
author: Arindam Basu
---

Date and Time: **4th May, Monday, 11 PM UTC** (Use [this calculator](https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html) to convert to your timezone)
Please indicate in the poll for the meeting:
[Poll link](http://whenisgood.net/wg-planning)

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https://canterbury.zoom.us/j/6561337682
Meeting ID: 656 133 7682
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Meeting ID: 656 133 7682

## Attendees (Name, email/twitter/linkedin, Institute, Country)
1. Arindam Basu, @arinbasu, University of Canterbury, New Zealand +
2. Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran, Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust, India
3. Dr Charles Umeh ,Nigeria, [e-mail] ,https://www.linkedin.com/mwlite/in/charles-umeh-ba53a012a
4. Dr Vije Rajput, General Practitioner, Stonydelph Health Centre, UK +
5. Dr. Gumindu Kulatunga : [e-mail], @GuminduK - Gumindu Kulatunga, +
Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo,Sri Lanka ( Currently in UK for overseas training )
6. Oommen John, @oommen_john, George Institute for Global Health India
7. Craig Kuziemsky, @ckuziemsky, MacEwan University, Canada +
8. Kendall Ho, [e-mail], @ubcdigem, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia +
9. Dr SB Gogia SATHI India+
10. Dr. Sriram Iyengar +
11. Dr Inga Hunter +
12. Dr. Dale Sheehan +
13.

## Agenda item and reason for call:
1. Fill in the form
2. Scoping Telehealth initatives on COVID19
3. Identification of the members who will want to work
4. Next steps
---
## To be discussed in the meeting (do not prefill)

## Items to fill in during the meeting:

### Name of the Workrgroup/SIG: IMIA-TH working group

### What role do we play?
We are the link between telehealth applications and tools and the day to day realities of providing care. We also look at the issue to delivering telehealth - i.e. standards, ethics, equity, and differences across settings and countries. (Craig)

(Inga Hunter) Members of the working group may be working in clinical telehealth, on regional/national/international telehealth leaders groups, and/or conducting research and publishing findings relevant to both clinical work and legal/policy development. Research projects include sensors and the elderly living at home, consumers perspectives on telehealth, how to maximise changed models of care with telehealth into the future, what are the barriers to a future telehealth model of health care, health literacy and digital literacy requirements - how to develop rapid upskilling of workforce, including consumer and family, health care provider and health care manager. Other options could be privacy impacts with pandemic surveillance - wnat happens once alert levels drop.

(Kendall Ho): virtual emergency services in BC Canada for COVID, virtual emergency medicine evaluation (quadruple aim), home health monitoring for contact tracing and home surveillance, patients and caregivers education to raise digital health literacy, digital health research (e.g. sensors, machine learning, cloud computing)

(Dale Sheehan) educational straegies to train people to use telemedicine. Do we need to train patients to be activites contriutors in telehealth consultations

(Vije Rajput) 1. value judgements and approaches we make when generating, analysing and disseminating data. This includes a sound knowledge of data protection law and other relevant legislation, and the appropriate use of new technologies. It requires a holistic approach incorporating good practice in computing techniques, ethics and information assurance.

## Calls for action
- Contribution of TH in the various phases of covid-19 outbreak response

Dowe need to embed a training programmes in all health practtioners traiing so they have the skills to use telemedicine effectively.
Are we using interprofessional practices and relationships in telehelath consultations. Especially to supprt patients
(S B Gogia) Creating a training program forgeenral practitioners through Webinars as well as formal online training course
India has brought out the telemedicinne practice guidelines which has some specific dos and donts - they need upgrading though - https://1drv.ms/u/s!AuG8Angpsdtdg4A2mmCV9wJre6loSg?e=myGepN

(Craig) Policy recomendations for telehealth that balance access with rigor to ensure standards, ethics, privacy etc.

Guideline development of best practices

(Vije Rajput) Reduce burden on clinicians and staff so can focus on patients. Patient safety. Improving productivity with digital technology.

(Inga) Agree with the above - develop short course/webinamr package (could reuse those already developed in copyright permits) digital upskilling of whole health workforce from consumer and family to healthcare provider to healthcare manager. Investigate barriers to ongoing telehealth in models of care post covid-19 so we don't waste the effort put into telehealth during covid-19. Compare standards and policies across countries. How to make the technology unobtrusive, easy to use, and in the background to the actual consultation so that safety and quality care is provided. How to enable teamwork through telehealth. How to fund ongoing consultations through telehealth

How to build change management into covid-19 digital telehealth deployments.
(Kendall) Support patients and family caregivers in meaningfully use and shape virtual and digital health

(Kendall) How do we document evidence of virtual health and demonstrate advances that have been achieved with COVID?

(Kendall) What will be the next threshold in digital health and how should we advance it to the next level?

(Craig) how do we ensure that we do not lose the momentum for virtual health after COVID subsides? we need to learn from what worked well, address issues that are identified and keep moving forward with a digital health agenda

### Recommend what not to do
- (Gumindu)- Prevent the use of SMS for prescribing medications
- (Dale) side step pt safety considerations including cultural safety considerations
- disempower patients by failing to adeqauelty breif them or empower them to communication in a medium new to them
- (Inga)do not widen the digital divide or worsen health inequalities both within countries and between countries
(Inga) do not worsen workload on health providers

[https://1drv.ms/u/s!AuG8Angpsdtdg4A2mmCV9wJre6loSg?e=myGepN](https://)
(S B Gogia) Please read the article "Unintended Consequences - IMIA Year 2016" - see below
### Relevant papers from our WG
Kuziemsky CE, Gogia SB, Househ M, Petersen C, Basu A. Balancing Health Information Exchange and Privacy Governance from a Patient-Centred Connected Health and Telehealth Perspective. Yearb Med Inform [Internet]. 2018 Aug [cited 2019 Oct 31];27(1):48–54.

Gogia SB, Maeder A, Mars M, Hartvigsen G, Basu A, Abbott P. Unintended Consequences of Tele Health and their Possible Solutions. Contribution of the IMIA Working Group on Telehealth. Yearb Med Inform [Internet]. 2016 Nov [cited 2019 Oct 31];(1):41–6.

Lee C, Ho K. Knowledge to action framework for home health monitoring. Healthc Manage Forum. 2019 Jul;32(4):183-187. doi: 10.1177/0840470419855364. PMID: 31237156

Abu-Laban RB, Drebit S, Svendson B, Chan N, Ho K, Khazei A, Lindstrom RR, Lund A, Marsden J, Christenson J. Process and findings informing the development of a provincial emergency medicine network. Healthc Manage Forum. 2019 Sep;32(5):253-258. doi: 10.1177/0840470419844276. Epub 2019 Jun 9. PMID: 31180243

Holmes BJ, Bryan S, Ho K, McGavin C. Engaging patients as partners in health research: Lessons from BC, Canada. Healthc Manage Forum. 2018 Mar;31(2):41-44. doi: 10.1177/0840470417741712. Epub 2018 Feb 1. PMID: 29390889

IMIA 2019 paper

Whiddett, D., Hunter, I., McDonald, B., Norris, T., & Waldon, J. (2016). Consent and widespread access to personal health information for the delivery of care: A large scale telephone survey of consumers' attitudes using vignettes in New Zealand. BMJ Open. 6(8)g vignettes in New Zealand. BMJ Open, 6(8). doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2016-011640

Elers P, Hunter I, Whiddett D, Lockhart C, Guesgen H, Singh A. “User Requirements for Technology to Assist Aging in Place: Qualitative Study of Older People and Their Informal Support Networks” JMIR Mhealth Uhealth 2018;6(6):e10741

Thara R, John S, Chatterjee S. Comprehensive Care for Patients in the Developing World. Int J Ment Health. 2013;42(1):77-90. doi:10.2753/IMH0020-7411420105

Chohan H, Cheng T, Suen I, Vanden Broek J, Ho K: COVID Pandemic, Anxiety, and racism - a proposed paper for IMIA to consider

https://ako.ac.nz/knowledge-centre/review-of-educational-tools-for-teaching-telehealth-care/review-of-the-effectiveness-of-educational-tools-for-teaching-telehealth-care/

### If you want to be an author, please write here ( Is there a maximum number ?)

Craig Kuziemsky
Kendall Ho
Vije Rajput
Inga Hunter

(Text of Elaine Huesing's note):
> Dear IMIA Working Group and Special Interest Group Chairs and Co-Chairs,
We hope this message finds you all safe and healthy during this time. The IMIA VP WGs and SIGs, Dr. Luis Fernandez Luque, would like to organize a collaborative IMIA WG & SIG paper to be published that will address a call for action for the current COVID -19 and future pandemics.
* - [ ] We invite you to complete a quick survey - https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/H2B8HPC, which will allow IMIA to collect information from each IMIA Working Group and Special Interest Group on how your Group is planning to help with or has already been helping with the crisis in order to move forward in writing a collective paper - Call of Action for the current COVID-19 and future pandemics from the IMIA WGs and SIGs. The deadline for completing the survey is Friday, May 8, 2020. After the deadline we will connect with each first Author identified and arrange the next steps. By participating in this paper, we also hope to raise further awareness and engagement, as well as, promote interest in each Group’s activities and outstanding work being done.

As mentioned above, we have asked in the survey that one representative from each Group be identified to work directly with Luis; there will be a limit of two named authors per Group. The survey will only take a few minutes to complete.
We also are pleased to let you know that we have moved forward with our discussions with the WHO and there is indeed an interest in working more closely with the IMIA Working Groups and Special Interest Groups. We had planned to have arranged a Lunch session with a representative from WHO at the MIE meeting this month for all WG and SIG Chairs and Co-Chairs and to have the meeting available virtually for those that were unable to attend in person. Unfortunately, as you know, these plans ad to becanceled. Once things have settled a bit more for the WHO in deal
ing with COVID-19, we will arrange a virtual meeting for everyone and update you on this as soon as we can.