HELINA 2025: Pan-African Health Informatics Association 2025 Conference University of Botswana Gaborone, Botswana, August 26-28, 2025

Theme: Building Sustainable and Resilient Client Centred Health Informatics Systems for Health Equity in Africa

The Pan-African Health Informatics Association (HELINA) conference is the premier scientific conference focusing on digital health in Africa. It brings together scientists, implementers, government policy makers, private sector players, and other key stakeholders working on digital health to share their latest research, evaluations, case studies and implementation best practice from around Africa. It offers a unique platform to explore evidence-based advancements in health informatics, focusing on how digital technologies can transform healthcare delivery in Africa.

The 2025 Pan-African Health Informatics scientific conference (HELINA) is scheduled from the 26^th – 28^th of August 2025 at the University of Botswana (UB) conference centre, Gaborone, Botswana. Botswana is known for its political stability, sound governance, robust ICT infrastructure, and perhaps a pioneer in Southern Africa’s adoption of digital health solutions. It is an ideal host for the HELINA 2025 scientific conference. The conference is the premier annual event of the African regional body of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA). It offers a unique platform to explore advancements in health informatics, focusing on how digital health can enhance healthcare delivery in Africa. 

The co-hosts of the conference are the Health Informatics Association of Botswana (HIASWANA), the University of Botswana eHealth Research Unit bringing together the Computer Science Department, UB Faculty of Health Sciences as well as the UB Faculty of Medicine, the Botswana Health Information Management Association (BoHIMA), and the Ministry of Health in Botswana.

Submission Guidelines

The organizers of HELINA 2025 welcome original papers that must not have been simultaneously submitted to another journal or conference:

1. Full research papers should be focused on reporting mature research results. Papers should be between 5 and 8 pages in length (excluding references) and will be subject to a rigorous double-blind peer-review. Accepted full research papers will be published in the Oxford Open Digital Health journal (https://academic.oup.com/oodh/pages/about).

2. Work in progress papers (articles between 5 and 8 pages) should be focused on reporting on preliminary research results. Papers should be between 5 and 8 pages in length and will be subject to a double-blind peer-review. Accepted work in progress papers will be published electronically in the conference proceedings with an ISBN number on the HELINA website.

3. Case studies and experience papers (reports on e-Health interventions and implementations or lessons learned, 2-3 page paper). Digital health case studies can highlight successful endeavours in developing or executing programs, policies, or interventions that tackled specific public health problems in various nations. These studies offer valuable insights into the implementation process and provide context for other countries to adapt the programs in their own settings. In addition to providing qualitative or quantitative data, case studies present an analytical approach that extrapolates findings and key takeaways for those facing similar obstacles. All case studies will be subject to a double-blind peer-review. Accepted case studies will be published in the Oxford Open Digital Health journal (https://academic.oup.com/oodh/pages/about).

4. Panel Discussion: The panel session leader should submit a 3-5 page abstract with an overall description of the digital health topic of discussion in conformity with the theme of the conference, followed by a brief outline of each of the panellist’s topic of discussion (up to 4 paragraphs). A total of 4-5 panellist’s should be included in the abstract and each panellist should aim to submit a different but complementary perspective of the main, avoiding duplicative content. All panel session abstracts will be subject to a double-blind peer-review. Accepted abstracts will be published electronically in the conference proceedings with an ISBN number on the HELINA website. All members of the panel must register for and attend the conference. Panel sessions will typically be 45-60 minutes.

5. Pre-conference workshop: A 1-2 page abstract describing the workshop. The typical structure should include Background/Introduction, Learning Objectives, Audience/Participants, Learning Style/Approach, Learning Outcomes and Materials. A pre-conference workshop should provide participants (mainly early career) with an opportunity to extend their knowledge and strengthen their skills in key topics on digital health. It should stimulate discussion and share practical experience from innovative digital health solutions, approaches and policies in the field aimed at building capacity of the participants in an environment that allows for in-depth interaction. All Pre-conference workshop abstracts will be subject to a double-blind peer-review evaluation. Workshops will typically be half-a-day. A full-day's workshop may be considered in some cases.

Papers may be submitted in English or French and should not have been submitted to other conferences or journals.

The HELINA 2025 paper, poster and abstract submission system opened on January 15, 2025. All papers must be submitted using the HELINA 2025 conference management system once open. As a guide to authors on the details and format for submissions, please refer to the guidelines found at https://easychair.org/cfp/HELINA2025.    The recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/) must be followed when preparing and submitting papers. 

List of Topics

The HELINA 2025 conference is currently receiving abstracts in the following thematic areas:

• Data Science and Artificial Intelligence
  • Health data analytics
  • Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
  • Predictive Analytics for Population Health
• Information and Knowledge Management
  • Patient-Centered Systems
  • Clinical Decision Support
  • Standards and Interoperability
  • Digital technologies in Social Protection
• Health Informatics Education and Capacity Development
  • Health Informatics Training Programs and Certifications
  • Addressing Skill Gaps in Health Informatics
  • Professional Development in Health Informatics
• Policy, Governance and Financing
  • Health Data Governance
  • Digital Health and Policy Development
  • Digital technologies in Public Health Surveillance, Public Health Emergencies and Pandemic Preparedness
  • Economic Evaluations and Digital Health Financing
• Telemedicine and Digital Health
  • Remote Patient Monitoring and Virtual Care
  • Mobile Applications in health (mHealth)
  • Innovations in Telehealth
• Privacy, Security, and Ethics
  • Cybersecurity in Healthcare
  • Ethical Considerations in AI, Health Data and Emerging Technologies
  • Regulatory Compliance and Data Governance
• Digital Health Systems Resilience 
  • National Digital Public Infrastructure (e.g. data exchange platform, digital ID, registries, etc)
  • Financial sustainability of digital health systems investments
  • Strategic partnerships for sustainable digital health systems

Committees

Program Committee

• Dr. Tom Oluoch - Chair
• Dr, Frances Baaba da Costa Vroom
• Dr. Binyam Tilahun

Organizing Committee

• Dr. Kagiso Ndlovu
• Dr. Roy Tapera
• Dr. Star Chibemba

Venue

The conference will be held at the University of Botswana (UB) conference centre, in Gaborone, Botswana.

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to spc@helina.africa