DMS Joins New Community-Based Primary Healthcare Partnership for Kosovo

Hanover--Dartmouth Medical School has been awarded a grant from the American Health Alliance International (AIHA)/United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to develop community primary care in the Gjilan (Gnjilane), region of Kosovo.

This two-year grant will enable a new healthcare partnership with AIHA /USAID, and the Municipality of Gjilan to improve the delivery of community-based primary healthcare services in this region. Dartmouth community and family medicine faculty and project leaders James Strickler, MD, principle investigator, and Donald Kollisch, MD, medical director, helped launch the partnership last month in Kosovo.

The program builds upon the highly successful model developed by AIHA during the past two years to address local healthcare issues in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia. This partnership will also build upon strategies implemented by the World Health Organization, the Gjilan Family Medicine Center, and the United Nations Mission in Kosovo/Department of Health and Social Welfare.

Dartmouth Medical School, recognized for its history of successful community-based primary healthcare programs, has worked to integrate the community in its medical curricula. Under the leadership of DMS Dean John C. Baldwin, MD, the medical school has, for the past two years, actively sought to help Pristina Medical University in Kosovo incorporate this educational model into its academic programs. Anne Brisson, PhD, is the administrative director for the DMS/Kosovo program.

Located in southeast Kosovo, the Gjilan region has a population of approximately 130,000 people. At this time, only eight of the 22 existing healthcare clinics in the region are functioning--a situation which places additional strain on the area's already overburdened infrastructure.

The partnership will work with the Gjilan Municipality and the Family Medicine Center to improve the delivery of broad-based, community-oriented, primary healthcare services. Together, the Gjilan and DMS partners will seek involvement of multiple sectors, disciplines and interests within the community as they restructure existing healthcare services, in part by developing and implementing a system to deliver high-quality primary care services and training for clinicians. Both will work to improve the region's primary healthcare services by focusing on areas such as community health planning, health education, community organization, facility administration, information systems, pediatrics and adult health through a family-oriented model of care.

For further information contact Anne Brisson.

AIHA's Partnership Programs

This new USAID-sponsored Gjilan (Gnjilane)/Hanover alliance is part of AIHA's broad-based Health Partnerships Program--a program that represents the US healthcare sector's most coordinated response to healthcare issues in the New Independent States (NIS) of the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Since 1992, AIHA has supported some 80 partnerships involving healthcare providers and educators in 21 nations of the NIS and CEE. The US partners provide much-needed assistance to their overseas counterparts by drawing on the expertise of American physicians, nurses, administrators, educators, technical staff, and community leaders whose time is contributed on a voluntary basis to the program. To date, more than 8,000 professional exchanges have taken place and US partners have volunteered more than 150,000 days of their professional time.

In addition to contributing their technical expertise, US partners and their private sponsors have brought to the relationship in-kind contributions of medical and educational equipment and supplies. Since the inception of the program in 1992, the total voluntary contribution made by AIHA partners now exceeds $137 million. For every USAID dollar expended for partner grants under the new program, AIHA anticipates three dollars of voluntary support and in-kind contributions from the US partner institutions and their communities.

USAID is a government agency that administers economic and humanitarian assistance to countries worldwide. USAID finances programs and projects that promote broad-based, sustainable economic growth in developing countries and countries in transition. markets, competition, and democracy.

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