This two-day event brought together 36 participants and 15 team members from ten countries across the WPRO and SEARO regions. Attendees included evidence users such as healthcare professionals, policymakers, public health officials, and consumers as well as technology developers/support teams. The aim was to understand the requirements for creating useful, user-friendly platforms for living evidence synthesis and guidelines tailored to the regional context.
The event sought to build a broad understanding of how people access and use evidence across diverse settings in the region, to establish regional attitudes and requirements of possible AI-enabled solutions, and to ideate on formats and modalities for a future living evidence architecture, suited to the needs of people of the region.
This workshop provided an opportunity to convene a regional coalition towards the development of technology, tools and systems that are needed, with the intention of making this a reality through an open grant opportunity. Participants worked in small groups to discuss current challenges and ideate regional needs-aligned solutions with the team, for post-workshop refinement.
Activity 1: Understanding regional needs for evidence
The first activity focused on understanding how evidence is currently accessed and used across different levels of the health system in the region. Participants discussed the role of living guidelines in their contexts, identified key barriers related to infrastructure, digital access, and trust, and envisioned what ideal evidence delivery could look like in their settings.
Presentations: International, regional and local perspectives
The workshop featured a series of short presentations offering international, regional, and local perspectives on living guidelines and evidence. Speakers from WHO Headquarters, WPRO, SEARO and Indonesia shared insights from their contexts, including challenges and innovations, helping participants situate their experiences within a broader global landscape.
Activity 2: Supporting health decision making in the region
The second activity focused on supporting health decision making in the region. Participants worked with personas based in either maternal and child health or pandemic preparedness scenarios. They identified the challenges these decision-makers face in accessing living evidence, explored how evidence could ideally be delivered to meet their needs, and envisioned technology solutions such as platforms or apps that could support timely, user-friendly access to trustworthy information.
Activity 3: Ideating on a technology supported platform for the region
The third activity focused on envisioning a technology-supported platform tailored to regional needs. Using the same personas from Activity two, participants considered what such a platform might look like, what features would make it feel responsive to decision-makers in their context, and what concerns might arise around the use of AI-powered tools.
PLUS Survey
23 January – 6 February 2025
A cross-sectional survey to investigate the usability, key strengths, limitations, and desired improvements of current living guideline platforms.
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Opportunities Workshop
17 February 2025
A cross-sectional survey to investigate the usability, key strengths, limitations, and desired improvements of current living guideline platforms.
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Co-designing GLEA Software requirements
Q3/4 2025
In-depth co-design process for a globally sustainable/scalable LEA, with the associated co-designed software requirements.
Consolidation Workshop
Q4 2025
Finalising technology requirements and conducting user testing of concepts, bid development, communication strategy.