The deficiency of credible Arabic health information on the web calls for an immediate action to promote the quality of Arabic health websites, in order to improve its trustworthiness. KSAU-HS University in collaboration with the Saudi Association for Health informatics initiated this important project in May 2010. The main objective of the project is to establish a reliable Arabic Health Encyclopedia for the Arab community and to encourage health professionals from all Arabic countries to contribute in its creation. This Encyclopedia will be addressed to the general population, to professionals, as well as students.
The second objective of the project is to create a culture of reliable and credible Arabic health information on the Web by promoting international certifications. The Encyclopedia will only link to those websites which have been certified. This objective will be achieved with HON organization.
The project due to its importance was presented to King Abdullah of Abdulaziz, the King of Saudi Arabia who is well known to his support to humanitarian projects. The project was approved officially and was announced during the Saudi E-health conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in May 2010. A project team was formed headed by the VP for Technology and Health Informatics at KSAU-HS University.
Due to the importance and size of this project , the Arabic encyclopedia will be established in multiple phases; in order for it to achieve its ultimate goal of equality Arabic health information on the Net. Project phase are proposed to be carried out in 4 phases.
Phase 1: Mock-up Phase
The goal of this phase is to explore issues related to graphic designs, ergonomics, functionalities and content production workflows. Moreover, all services are presented on a mock-up website in order to stimulate and focus the discussions between all project teams. This phase was outsourced to HON foundation and was accomplished in December 2010. The main deliverables of the project include:
- A graphic and ergonomics concept for the Encyclopedia's website.
- An illustrated set of potential content and services.
- Identification and evaluation of potential content sources.
- An analysis of the workflow for coordinated content management including authoring, validation, translation , editing and quality assurance.
Elements of the site include general services, localized services and personalized services as shown in Figure. The general services include:
- An Encyclopedia of health topic including articles on complementary and preventive medicine.
- A medical dictionary.
- An easy information access through key criteria (age, gender, etc.)
- Health related news through syndication.
- Newsletter.
- Health tutorials.
- Video streaming and podcast.
- Tools for improving accessibility.
The localized services include a directory of health associations, hospitals, clinics, health services and health professionals in the Arab World.
The personalized services include:
- Subscription to specific information services.
- Mobile phone access.
- Social networking (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)
- Personal health tools.
With regard to the source of content, the project team has decided on relying on health information produced by WHO, NHS and NLM, in addition to health information produced by Arab health professionals . Agreements were signed between the Encyclopedia and these organizations for content syndication. Figure 4 shows a simplified version of the workflow used in this project for content production.
Phase 2: Establish Core Database and Publish first version of the Encyclopedia (6 Months).
In this phase, the Encyclopedia will cover limited number of health topics (200 health topics). This will cover most of the services including video stream and multimedia. This includes directory of disease, directory of drugs and articles on complementary and preventive medicine. In this phase a directory of most associations, hospitals, clinics and health professionals in the Arab World will be created. The first version of the encyclopedia will be launched online upon successful execution of this phase. This is expected by the end of July 2011.
Phase 3: Enhancement of Services.
As the number of visitors and the involvement of health professionals increases, more health content will be added. This phase is a continuous process and will start immediately after phase 2.
Phase 4: Promotion of Scientific Research.
Promote scientific research through the encouragement of research centers to represent their findings to serve health professionals. The encyclopedia will include: statistics (epidemiology), scientific articles, case studies, clinical trials and on-going research in health area.
Project Phases: