Renewed recognition from WHO

After four years as WHO's Collaborating Centre in telemedicine and eHealth, the Tromsø centre has been evaluated in Geneva during the past half-year. The NST has now been approved as a Collaborating Centre for another four years, and remains the only one of its kind in the world. When the NST was first granted the status of a Collaborating Centre in 2002, it was Gro Harlem Brundtland, the Director-General of WHO at that time, who made the formal nomination.

- Renewal of the collaborative agreement is based on the NST's professional qualifications, research and reports, as well as a plan for future areas of focus, writes Anne Marie Worning, Senior Advisor in the Programme of Management and Implementation at the WHO, in the renewal letter.

- “Specifically, this means that the WHO uses us in international issues related to telemedicine and eHealth. This may involve anything from answering specific questions to larger assignments in which the NST charts opportunities for the use of telemedicine in one of the WHO's member states,” says Tove Sørensen. She heads the WHO work at the NST.

International recognition
Since its designation as a WHO Collaborating Centre in 2002, the telemedicine community in Tromsø has been contacted by many international players. For the NST, collaboration with the World Health Organization is primarily a hallmark of quality. It promotes international interest in partnership with the centre.
An example is the study on trends in the use of eHealth services among the public in Europe. This population survey is led from Tromsø, and is funded in part by the public health department of the European Commission. Preparations for the study began in June 2005, and the results are expected in 2008.
The survey originates from a similar survey about Norwegians' use of the Internet for health purposes, which the NST has conducted twice previously.

Palestine and Cambodia
As a WHO partner, the NST has made active efforts to disseminate knowledge of telemedicine and eHealth in a variety of countries all over the world. The NST has conducted several feasibility studies within competence development and e-learning, for example in Cambodia and in Palestine.

- “These include assessing the potential for establishing a collaborative network between four rehabilitation hospitals in the West Bank and in Gaza. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has now pledged about NOK 4 million in support to implement this. Another result of our dissemination of competence is the development of Net-based training for orthopaedic engineers in Cambodia,” says Tove Sørensen

HIV/Aids in South Africa
Through its collaboration with the WHO, the telemedicine centre gains the opportunity to work with problems and research communities to which it would otherwise not have had access. An example is the development of mobile e-health systems to be used in the treatment of AIDS patients in South Africa.
Together with Cell Life in South Africa, the NST is investigating whether modern technology can make life easier for the many people who are affected by HIV and Aids.

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