Last month, I had an opportunity to meet with Yasin Keles, who is the chairman of SABIYAP. He and his team are passionate about making a difference in the way IT takes role in health industry. They have several activities coming up; you might be interested in participating in. I am excited to share the following interview with Yasin Keles.

Can you please tell us about yourself? What makes you passionate about Health IT?

I graduated from Engineering Department of Istanbul University and hold Health Care Administration degree.  It has been 13 year I am in health industry with a focus on health IT. It has been a great pleasure to work in an industry that is changing and evolving constantly. In addition, I am delivering lectures to both graduate and certificate students about several Healthcare topics at universities including ITU, Marmara, Beykent and Fatih. I am delighted to work in an area that allows me to serve people through Health IT that helps to improve people’s lives and also enhance quality of care. I am married with a 1, 5 old son.

How you came to start SABIYAP ? What are the major priorities for the organization?
I would describe it as a dream that did come true. A group of Health Care IT Administrators met 4 years ago and thought what we can do about Health Care. Then we established SABIYAP. Currently,  SABIYAP has about 250 members. They meet each other through various activities such as " SABIYAP breakfasts". Last year we wanted to extend the scope of the organizations’ objectives and put together the vision. This followed by building new projects. Furthermore, we include key players from Turkey through “IT Friendly Doctors" and "IT Friendly Nurses" programs. Thus, we are able to reach out to a larger stakeholder group and get a better picture of the current status in Health IT. This will eventually help us to drive better results.  SABIYAP is a platform to help Health IT Managers to get together. We are aiming to bring Health IT Managers from all over the world in CEBIT 2009.

We also bring an international perspective to allow exchange of ideas among countries. In addition to our website, we started publishing a journal which is the first and alone magazine in its focus area in Turkey. It has a 3 month time period and we are sending it to 3000 Health Care IT Managers.

What are the major challenges SABIYAP is addressing?

SABIYAP comprise all things about Health Care IT with a major focus on:

·         Helping the members to better develop themselves

·         Supporting effective usage of information technology in health

·         Bringing ideas to help with the implementation of new applications effectively

·         Providing Health IT Administrators with important education opportunities

·         Developing new job areas such as IT, Biomedical, Medical Secretary, Business Analyst, Exchange Systems etc. And, helping to define the role of these professions.

In terms of upcoming activities, can you tell us about these activities?
Our activities help our members to network, exchange ideas and also have discussions on major Health IT topics. We have several activities in 2009. These are;

·         -SABIYAP's Breakfasts and Technology Conversations

·         -SABIYAP's Expert Roundtable Discussions

·         -SABIYAP's Sport Activities

·         -SABIYAP's Nature and Cultural Travels

It is possible to reach out to our website on the details of the activities: www.sabiyap.org