Seattle, Jan.
30, 2002
Executive Summary
In response to the APEC Leaders Summit Declaration of October
2001, the first APEC network of networks meeting was convened
in Seattle, Washington from January 28㪶, 2002. Participants
from 14 APEC economies attended this initial meeting. A total
of 17 countries were represented in the group. The objectives
of this meeting were:
1) To promote collaboration among existing disease alert and
surveillance electronic networks in the Asia Pacific with the
eventual goals of:
– Enhancing geographic coverage of communications about infectious
disease
– Assuring accuracy and completeness of content about emergent
infectious disease
– Reinforcing timeliness of information access about epidemic
disease activity in the region
2) To explore potential corporate partnerships for the realization
of objective 1 in the region
The meeting agenda is included as Attachment
1.
The participants were unanimous in their desire to continue
their own involvement in the APEC process of developing a collaborative
association of disease networks in the regions. They also recommended
in plenary that APEC convene a ministerial meeting of health
ministers to more fully translate the APEC strategy operationally
for governments and other groups working in the region. In addition,
there is a consensus that financing for any new initiatives
should not come from precious national health budgets within
the region. The meeting was most successful at increasing communications
among networks and users present at the meeting, introducing
the participants to new information resources and spurring the
participants to explore new technologies.
The meeting was well attended throughout; a participants list
is included as Attachment 2. The three day meeting consisted
of plenary presentations, round table thematic work groups and
plenary synthesis sessions. An agenda is included. A systematic
evaluation of the meeting was carried out through survey of
attendees.
The roundtable sessions were one of the most highly rated sessions
among participants. The four themes discussed were 1) The prioritization
of urgent information across networks 2)The assurance of accuracy
and quality of information 3) The opportunities and obstacles
presented to electronic networking by the diverse nature of
national information infrastructure in the region. 4) The need
to incorporate distance learning more effectively into the work
of disease information networks. Full descriptions of the themes
to be discussed were sent to all participants prior to the meeting,
and participants were assigned to roundtables in accordance
with their stated preferences. Technical papers were circulated
as background to these discussions.
The thematic work groups provided concrete guidance for further
development of the network collaboration. The World Health Organization
(WHO) is coincidentally discussing prioritizing urgent information.
The working group concurred with the basic WHO criteria for
use in the region, but emphasized the importance of timely reporting
of man–made events and consideration of economic trade and travel
impacts. The group also recommended that the region work together
to inventory networks and assure the authoritative sources of
information in the region. The second thematic working group
identified gaps in infrastructure to support information/communications
that were both technical (biomedical) and political. This group
recommended that successful examples of networking be documented
and shared in the region to provide models. The group further
expressed need for access and training in the technical tools/software
for enhanced online communications. It was also recognized that
a stronger link between networks and government would be useful
to Ministries of Health. The area of accuracy and control echoed
the need for additional biomedical/surveillance technical support
in standardization of surveillance reporting. This group also
expressed the need to consider some kind of external documentation
of performance or review of networks on issues of quality and
accuracy.
Finally the need for training in surveillance, outbreak investigation
and informatics and computing was a theme that ran throughout
all four group discussions. The fourth group recommended a systematic
inventory of distance learning resources in health available
in the region. This will allow for targeted efforts to address
the areas of need in technical training within APEC.
.
The meeting was financially supported by the U.S. Government
with funding from the Department of State, the Department of
Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense through
a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cooperative agreement.
Technical partners included WHO regional offices (SEARO,WPRO,
PAHO and Headquarters), the South Pacific Commission, the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, the Global Emerging Infections
Surveillance project of the Department of Defense and the University
of Washington.
