Community of Practice

Community of Practice

Community of practice

At the heart of the initiative is the EIOS community: sub-national to international governmental and non governmental organisations working to prepare for and respond to health threats. With an all-hazards approach incorporating One Health principles, the EIOS community of practice collaborates across sectors and disciplines to build and strengthen global health security. This includes defining standards, harmonising activities and building competencies, capacity and enabling tools. Coming together as one community, pooling our resources, learning from each other’s successes and failures and collaboratively building on our strengths will be key to detecting health threats as early as possible and reduce or prevent their impact.

Communities timeline


 


Who can join?

There are clear benefits to being able to connect with a global community of experts and evolving technologies for intelligence. To remain focused and fit-for-purpose, interested organisations or entities must have a mission that aligns with that of the initiative. This generally includes sub-national and national governmental organisations, such as ministries of health, agriculture, or environment, as well as supranational, regional and international networks and organisations involved in public health, emergency preparedness and response activities. 

While each expression of interest is carefully assessed, the EIOS community, as a community of practice for PHI, does not directly include generally interested members of the public or private sector organisations. However, this does not prevent collaborations with individual experts or the private sector to further enrich and enhance global and scientific knowledge, technologies and processes. To support this, the EIOS initiative is working towards the implementation of “open source / open access” solutions, to promote the use and further development of code and processes across disciplines and sectors, creating a vibrant and evolving ecosystem of collaborating experts around the globe.
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How do new entities become part of the EIOS community?

Interested sub-national and national authorities should connect with the EIOS initiative through their respective WHO country or regional office, whereas regional, supranational and international organisations can connect with any level of WHO, including the EIOS Core Team at WHO headquarters.

Every request will be assessed individually. This includes assessing if the request fits within the EIOS scope and purpose, as well as gauging the requirements for collaboration on both sides to ensure the necessary capacity is available to successfully adopt and participate in the initiative.
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EIOS implementation

 

What is expected of EIOS community members?

Members of the EIOS initiative are not simply users of another system, but rather important contributors to a global network. Expectations, therefore, are that they will actively contribute to the initiative by sharing their expertise, needs and ideas. By providing input and feedback, they will help to enhance the EIOS system, and contribute to standards and processes to help harmonise the PHI function. Members can contribute to the governance of the initiative and facilitate information sharing across the global EIOS community.

It is important to note that while EIOS provides a platform to facilitate the PHI function, including communication and transparency across actors and institutions engaged in PHI, it does not replace established formal reporting channels such as those put in place under the International Health Regulations (IHRs) and through which all WHO Member States are obliged to formally report health threats that meet certain criteria. Rather, the EIOS system enables access to a vast range of publicly available information to facilitate timely detection, identification and verification, of events that may pose a threat to public health, complement contextual analysis and assessment and facilitate communication across the global network of experts.
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What can entities expect when joining the EIOS community?

Joining EIOS means becoming part of an active global community of professionals dedicated to the prevention and mitigation of the impact of health threats on lives around the world. There are no direct financial costs involved, and you automatically get access to the EIOS system. As it is web-based, the use of the system does not require any specific software other than a functional internet browser and stable internet connection. System training and support are coordinated through WHO and a global network of trainers and can be delivered in different ways depending on needs and circumstances.

To get an impression of what an in-person EIOS System training looks like, watch the video and hear from participants of the EIOS system training at the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency from November 2019.