Working Group on Women
(WoW)

ISfTeH Working Groups

The Working Group on Women (WoW) of the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth develops actions to support and promote the role of Women in the areas of Telemedicine and eHealth in the world. It aims at developing collaborations with other WGs and international partners to make women visible through international conferences and scientific publications.

Planned activities

  • Gender Equality Plan (GEP) Gender Equality Plan (GEP) Finalise and publish the ISfTeH GEP aligned with WHO's Programme for Gender Equality, Human Rights & Health Equity, and UN Agenda 2030 SDG 5. Invite all ISfTeH members to contribute. Identify new members (e.g. Chinomso IBE, Traffina Foundation, Nigeria).
    Main
  • Membership Expansion Grow WoW active membership, particularly in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Target: more engaged members in 2025–2026. Explore FIOCRUZ (Brazil) as an institutional ISfTeH member.
  • New ISfTeH Website – WoW Page Continue populating the relaunched WoW webpage with members, activities, resources, and news: https://isfteh.org/working-groups/working-group-on-women-wow/
  • Webinar Series – Continuation Webinar Series – Continuation Continue the Women in Digital Health webinar series with new regional editions. Maintain joint programming with the ISfTeH Telenursing & Midwifery WG.
  • Cross-WG Integration Cross-WG Integration Strengthen cross-functional collaboration between WoW and other ISfTeH working groups, including joint publications, projects, and shared advocacy on digital health equity.

Our aims

Board of the WG

Chair

Angelica Baptista Silva

(Brazil)

Vice-Chair

Veronica Inès Thouvenot

(France)

Publications, reports,
webinars and more

Decolonial IT: Challenges for Design from Intersectional and Feminist Perspectives in HAI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5JeHhtT4Ig

This webinar, hosted by the ISfTeH Working Group on Women (WoW) and ISfTeH Nurses and Midwives Working Group, explores the intersection of Feminist Human-Computer Interaction/Human-Algorithm Interaction (HCI/HAI), Design Justice, Intersectionality, and Decoloniality as critical frameworks for analyzing power dynamics embedded in information technologies.

Women in eHealth – Partnering Globally in Digital Health 26th ISfTeH International Conference, 7-8 March 2022, Dubai, UAE

Organized by the ISfTeH Working Group on Women (WoW) and Telenursing Working Group  
The purpose of this session was to inform participants about the wide scope of eHealth/digital health solutions that exisit in many specialties and settings. Participants were encouraged to identify their current level of knowledge and abilities and consider how they can advance themselves personally while also contributing to health care delivery systems and care recipient outcomes.
See the entire session here:

https://youtu.be/Lb3Al-aFOPw

The Working Group on Women organised the Women Special Sessions at Med-e-Tel 2013 – 2017, with the support of Klughammer (http://www.klughammer.com), and the Women Observatory for eHealth of the Foundation Millennia2025 (http://www.m2025-weobservatory.org). An initial study conducted on Women and eHealth in 2010 – 2012 (http://www.m2025-weobservatory.org/wehealth.html), helped to shape the programmes at Medetel, with a focus on Education, Research, Collaborations and Dissemination (http://www.m2025-weobservatory.org/medetel.html). 

Since 2017, WoW is present at the Université eSanté, Castres, France (https://www.universite-esante.com/) and eHealthWorld in Monaco (https://e-healthworld.com/) and ISfTeH annual conference in Lisbon, Portugal (https://www.isfteh.org/news/24th_isfteh_international_conference)

Scientific articles in the JISfTeH Journal

Three Special Issues of the Journal of the International Society of Telemedicine and eHealth (JISfTeH, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/JISfTeH/) on “Women in eHealth”, 2015,  2017 and 2018-2019 are published, with sixteen articles authored by women (http://www.m2025-weobservatory.org/journal-of-isfteh—wow.html).

 

In the context of WHO YEAR OF THE NURSE AND THE MIDWIFE 2020, The Special Issue at the JISfTeH on “Telehealth in Nursing” is published in collaboration with WG Tele-Nursing: https://www.m2025-weobservatory.org/uploads/3/9/5/1/39512321/telehealth_in_nursing_2020_web_final.pdf.

With one Guest Editorial « Nurses and Midwives in eHealth » by Claudia C Bartz, Pirkko Kouri and Veronique Thouvenot, and five articles authored by nurses or midwives as principal authors. They cover the areas of nursing research, the development of a web application in Brazil, attitudes toward information technology in Sri Lanka, predictions of the future of healthcare in Finland, and malnutrition among pregnant women, mothers and babies in the rural amazonian forest.

 

Sixteen abstracts of the articles published at the JISfTeH since 2015 are translated in French (http://www.m2025-weobservatory.org/journal-of-isfteh—wow.html)

Women Influencers in eHealth – Femmes influentes en eSanté – Mujeres influrentes eneSalud

Empowering Women in Telemedicine and eHealth through Education

For its third participation the Working group on Women (WoW) and its partners, Millennia2025 Foundation, Connecting Nurses, Connecting Midwives and Klughammer, organised a Women and eHealth session at Medetel 2015 on the theme “Empowering Women in Telemedicine and eHealth through Education”.

The session aimed at creating the momentum along the various tools for education using ICTs to reach women as beneficiaries, healthcare professionals and leaders in Telemedicine and eHealth. MOOCs, mentoring, online courses, research and innovation were presented by speakers coming from Mexico, Australia, the Czech Republic and Nigeria. Participants shared several experiences in education with the speakers during an open dialogue session.

Download the report

Event and photos

News on the Blog:

 

The following presentations were held:

  • The Women Observatory for eHealth (WeObservatory) Develops an Intelligence MOOCs Commons for Women and eHealth
    by Veronique Thouvenot, Lilia Perez-Chavolla
    Millennia2025 Foundation, Belgium
    ICT Applications Consultant, USA
  • Mentoring Young Scientists and Engineers in Interdisciplinary Domains
    by Lenka Lhotska
    Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic
  • Where There is no Hospital: Mobile Sonography Devices to Reduce Maternal and Foetal Mortality and Morbidity
    by Nadine Goodman, Eleonora Muntañola Thornberg
    Centro para los Adolescentes de San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
    Centro para los Adolescentes de San Miguel de Allende, Spain
  • Telehealth in Nigeria (Mirage or Reality): A Review of Literature
    by Adesola Odole
    Dept. of Physiotherapy, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

ICN eHealth Bulletin and WoW

There is a citation of WoW in the eHealth Bulletin of June 2014 of the International Council of Nurses (ICN). The ICN is established in Geneva, Switzerland.

The eHealth Program Collaboration between ICN and ISfTeH was formalised with a Memorandum of Understanding that reflected the ongoing communication and collaboration between the two organisations. The Working Group on Women’s session at Med-e-Tel 2014 offered a dynamic opportunity to share expertise and field experiences on eHealth and Telemedicine solutions addressing women’s health needs. The Women Session at Med-e-Tel 2015 will focus on Education Online and eLearning.

Women in Computing

The early years of computing were full of women. Sometime around the 1970s, this changed. Why we should be bothered, and what we should be doing about it.

An article written by Dr Hannah Dee who is a lecturer in computer science at Aberystwyth, who does research into computer vision and teaches web programming.

Download article

During the Med-e-Tel 2014 conference in Luxembourg, the Working Group on Women (WoW) and the Women Observatory for eHealth (WeObservatory) presented “Women, eHealth and Telemedicine at All Ages of Life: From Birth to Old Age”

Download Report

The IET Women’s Network is a specialist group, set up to provide support to our women members. There are a number of elements that make up the network, some of which are featured below.

More Information

Statements from the two female candidates for the ISfTeH Board

Esther Ogara Statement

Pirkko Kouri Statement

GSMA mWomen

Increasing women’s access to and use of mobile and life-enhancing, value-added services in the developing world.

Read more

The ISfTeH Working Group on Women (WoW) was created after the Women and eHealth Special Session at Med-e-Tel 2013 in Luxembourg.

 

Membership &
Joining the Working Group

 Our membership:

If you would like to join the WoW Working Group send a message expressing your interest to info@isfteh.org
If you are not yet an ISfTeH member, please apply for membership first.

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