International Medical Corps has designed the Emergency Medicine Development Initiative to address the critical need for modern evidence based emergency medical services in Azerbaijan. The initiative aims to re-orient Azerbaijan’s soviet style emergency medical services to western models of pre-hospital and in-patient care through a combination of technical assistance, training, and advocacy at the grass roots levels, and policy development and reform at the national level over a period of three years.

IMC has already implemented phase one of the EMDI with funding support from Amerada Hess in Azerbaijan. Based on the successful completion of Phase one Amerada Hess, Chevron and BTC/SCP Co. have agreed to financially support future phases of the program in partnership with USAID through the Global Development Alliance (GDA). The amount of BTC/SCP grant is $100,080 with matching funds being over $ 2 mln.

The goal of the Emergency Medicine Development Initiative (EMDI) is to improve the quality and effectiveness of pre-hospital ambulance care and in-hospital emergency medical services in Azerbaijan. The purpose of the EMDI is to create an environment that is conducive to reform the national Ministry of Health policies on emergency medicine through the demonstration of effective interventions that improve the efficiency and quality of care, while reducing costs. The main objectives of the EMDI have been established through a participatory process by the IMC team, Senior Health authorities in Azerbaijan, and medical consultants from the Johns Hopkins University.

The main objectives of the EMDI are streamlined into 3-4 overarching components during the process to design the annual detailed implementation plan. They are presented below:

1. Objective one: To improve the quality of emergency medical and ambulance services available in four regional hospitals.
2. Objective two: To establish national (Baku) and regional (Ganja) training centers for emergency medicine and first responder training.
3. Objective three: To develop new Emergency Medicine Policy that is approved by MOH.
4. Objective four: Design and set up HIS for injury surveillance and emergency medicine
5. Objective five: To improve the hospital physical plant, infrastructure and departmental function in four regional hospitals.
6. Objective six: To equip four regional hospitals with appropriate modern medical equipment.
7. Objective seven: To develop new community outreach programs that focus on injury prevention and safety promotion.

Political support from the President’s office is critical to bringing about any sustainable change. President Ilham Aliyev has taken a personal interest in the EMDI phase one program. The president’s support will be an important factor in the successful reform of any MOH policies.

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