Annual Program Report 2004 - American International Health Alliance

Photo: Barry Kinsella
Health Management Training in
Georgia
The Tbilisi/Scranton, Pennsylvania, partnership
wrapped up nearly five years of USAID-funded
collaboration in September. The National Health
Management Center in Tbilisi and its satellites in
Batumi, Kutaisi and Telavi are continuing to provide
courses developed by the partners to hospital
managers, physicians and nurses. The partners
published the quarterly, interdisciplinary Journal
of Health Services Management and Public Health
and a textbook in Georgian titled, Public Health
and Management. In collaboration with the
National Institutes of Health, partners also prepared
a toolkit in Russian titled, Health Care
Management Guidelines.
Nursing Distance Education in
Armenia
Under the USAID-funded Nursing Distance
Education Project, graduate nursing students at
Erebouni Medical College in Yerevan participated in
on-line courses with counterparts at the University
of Nebraska Medical Center’s School of Nursing to
strengthen advanced nursing education in Armenia.
The project also demonstrated the use of distance
learning technology for developing nursing education
in a resource-poor country. During 2004, 10
students from Erebouni completed Internet-based
courses on curriculum design and research in nursing.
Four courses were completed during the twoyear
project. The project was interrupted with the
end of funding for AIHA programs in Armenia.
AIHA partnerships have helped create a new generation of
highly-skilled nurses by improving opportunties for their education
and professional development.
Theoretical lessons combined with hands-on clinical training
help partners hone their skills.
Public Health and Health Management in
Albania
In January, the Tirana/Bucharest, Romania, partnership
(the first not involving a US partner) held
a dissemination conference to share their experiences
and outcomes and to market the primary
care management course developed through the
partnership. The partners presented processes for
identifying training needs for health professions
and developing the training-of-trainers course in
Albania. Given the similarities in healthcare
reforms in Albania and Romania, the capacity
building for public health and health management
served both partners. The partnership graduated
in March.
New Eritrea Award
In December, USAID awarded AIHA the Health
Professions Education Partnership Program
designed to build a foundation for meeting urgent
health workforce education needs in Eritrea. In
view of the critical role of physicians and the
diminished size of Eritrea’s medical workforce, the
program will emphasize the strengthening of medical
education through support to Eritrea’s new
academic health center, comprising the recentlyestablished
Orotta School of Medicine, related
nursing and allied health professions schools, and
affiliated teaching hospitals. The project, closely
coordinated with the Ministry of Health’s workforce
plans and policies, began in 2005.
Photo: Barry Kinsella
Annual Program Report 2004 19