Private Communities

Last updated: January 2012

Public communities: open-access, though participation (posting, recommending content, receiving email notifications) requires free GHDonline membership.

Private communities: access is limited to community members, and community membership is controlled by community moderators and GHDonline staff. However, the names and descriptions of these communities are listed on the communities page, so non-members can request access.

The way we achieve our primary mission at GHDonline is to foster the exchange of knowledge through discussion in public communities.

There are, however, cases in which we host private communities for specific organizations and collaborative initiatives. Organizations choose GHDonline because of its flexibility, reliability, and accessibility in resource-limited settings, as well as the connection to the expert-led public communities. These private communities are time-limited working group communities that are linked to one or more public communities, are discussing sensitive matters internal to the organization, and produce a knowledge artifact which will be published in the public community. This artifact can take the form of a document, Expert Panel, or a series of discussions cross-posted in both private and public communities.

If you have a community request that meets these requirements, we encourage you to contact us to find out more about options and pricing for private communities.

We recognize that many feel comfortable sharing knowledge in private, with a small and well-known group of colleagues. However, we believe that the transfer of knowledge outside traditional communication "silos" is critical to the improvement of health care delivery. Our founding partners and sponsors have supported us since 2008 to carry out this mission.

As a result, public communities receive the most attention and support from the GHDonline staff -- our community managers work closely with community moderators to foster community participation, run Expert Panels, create Discussion Briefs, and do outreach and promotion. Our staff provides technical support for members and creates reports to help the community moderators track growth. Our software team develops new features for the platform based on the needs of public communities.

“In addition to continuing to learn from nursing colleagues, GHDonline is a very good resource on topics that are not necessarily my area of expertise. It has become a "go to" place to quickly get an overview of topics from a diverse group of providers.”

–Sheila Davis, Director of Global Nursing, Partners In Health, U.S.A., Assistant Professor of Nursing, Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions, and GHDonline Moderator

Why join?

Membership to the communities of the Global Health Delivery Online platform, GHDonline.org, is made available at no cost thanks to Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Members have access to more than 30 expert moderators and to content and services like peer-reviewed discussion briefs and reviews of recent scholarly articles or a leading clinical information resource from partners, and to a team of professionals that support the GHDonline communities and platform and organize virtual expert panels with leading experts on a regular basis.

Sign up here!