São Paulo, July 17, 2026 (BIREME/PAHO/WHO) – BIREME/PAHO/WHO participated in the 39th Congress of the National Council of Municipal Health Secretariats (CONASEMS), held this week in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, from July 12 to 15. The opening ceremony included the participation of the PAHO/WHO Representative in Brazil, Dr. Cristian Morales Fuhrimann. Throughout the congress, BIREME delivered a series of presentations on products and services developed through technical cooperation with Brazil's Ministry of Health to strengthen knowledge management, advance digital health transformation, and expand the use of evidence to support decision-making within the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS).
Among the highlights of the program was the workshop "Observatory on Health Policies, Systems and Innovation: International Cooperation and Evidence-Informed Policies", coordinated by the Department of Technical Cooperation, Innovation, and Health Development (DECOOP) of Brazil's Ministry of Health. The session featured BIREME Director João Paulo Souza, who presented the prototype of the Observatory, a new product of the technical cooperation with the Ministry of Health designed to integrate scientific evidence, indicators, public policies, and practical experiences into a reference environment for health managers, researchers, and professionals.
Bringing together approximately 100 participants, the workshop emphasized the importance of strengthening mechanisms that connect scientific knowledge with the needs of public health management, contributing to the development of evidence-informed health policies. The Observatory was presented as a strategic initiative linked to other solutions developed by BIREME: "The goal is to translate complex data into practical solutions, ensuring that decisions are informed by evidence," emphasized Director João Paulo Souza.
Knowledge Guiding Decision-Making in the SUS
The Information Products and Services (PSI) team participated in the activities at the PAHO and Ministry of Health institutional booths, demonstrating recently launched products. Highlights included:
- SUS Digital Platform, presented by Verônica Abdala; a national reference environment that integrates and disseminates information from a range of portals and thematic webpages, as well as the publications repository and other strategic resources of the SUS Digital Program;
- Virtual Health Library on Indigenous Peoples, presented by Angélica de Paula, who discussed its objectives, organization, information sources, and access methods as a tool to support the production, preservation, and dissemination of knowledge;
- Formative Second Opinion (SOF) and Decision Aids, presented by Juliana Sousa. These tools support, respectively, the continuing education of health professionals and informed, shared decision-making in health care.
Completing the program, BIREME also participated in the panel "30 Years of RIPSA: Contributions and Challenges for Public Health in Brazil", where Juliana Sousa presented the latest updates to the RIPSA Portal during the session "Current Strategies for Health Information Dissemination – Navigation and Practical Use."
