Health Management Education (HME)

• Develop a course in health management for undergraduates studying medicine, nursing, and business administration at the University of Tirana.
• Design a curriculum for a graduate-level program in health management at the University of Tirana.
• Develop an in-service training capacity for managers of the MOHEP by identifying and developing MOHEP staff to serve as trainers and helping them develop curricula.
• Establish a health management resource center at one of the partner institutions to support development of the university-based curriculum, in-service training, and the analytic work of the policy analysis unit within the MOHEP. The center will be available to students, faculty and staff from the three partner institutions.
• Establish a learning resource center (LRC) at each Albanian partnership institution. The LRCs will provide staff with access to Internet and computer-based information resources to foster effective communications between partners to complement partnership activities.

Policy Analysis

• Develop a policy analysis unit within the MOHEP which will be staffed with professionally trained analysts. NYU will provide graduate-level education to selected MOHEP staff to fulfill this role.

• A Memorandum of Understanding was signed on April 5 between New York University and the three Albanian institutions, officially launching the partnership.
• Representatives of the Albanian partnership institutions and New York University attended AIHA's first Annual CEE Partnership Conference. The conference was held in Budapest, Hungary, in May.
• In June, partnership representatives attended the annual meetings of the Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA) and the Association of Health Services Research (AHSR) in Atlanta, GA. The AUPHA annual meeting focused on "Leadership for Community Health Partnerships," while the theme of the AHSR meeting was "Health Services Research: Implications for Policy, Health Care Delivery and Clinical Practice."

• Partnership exchanges to Albania ceased from February- October due to political instability in the country.
• Partnership representatives from Albania and NYU participated in AIHA's 2nd Annual CEE Partnership Conference, held in Zagreb, Croatia in May. The theme of the conference was "Evidence-Based Medicine."
• AIHA organized an eight-day Health Management Workshop in September for a group of 28 Albanian health care professionals representing both the hospital and health management education partnerships. The workshop was held in Slovenia, due to the inability of US partners to travel into Albania. The workshop was led by faculty from AUPHA, with support from US partners from Butterworth Hospital and New York University. The workshop addressed issues such as management, leadership, project planning, decision-making, human resources management, and cost accounting.
• Five Albanians and two US faculty participated in a Health Policy Seminar organized by AIHA in Prague in October. The seminar involved participants from all five of AIHA's HME partnerships. Participants compared the status of health policy in both the US and CEE contexts, discussed general theses of policy analysis in the health sector, considered various approaches to teaching policy analysis skills, and discussed the use of comparative policy analysis as part of health management education curricula.
• In December, the Albanian Minister of Health and two senior Ministry officials traveled to New York and Washington, DC to develop the Ministry's in-service management training program. The visit represented the Ministry's support and dedication to the partnership program.
• Also in December, an AIHA-supported Learning Resource Center opened at the Ministry of Health and Environmental Protection. The Resource Center provides access for Ministry staff to modern management literature and research through the Internet.

• In January, a Learning Resource Center opened at the National Institute of Public Health.
• In March, five Albanians attended a health care workforce conference organized by AIHA in Budapest entitled Shaping the Infrastructure of Health Professions. This gathering of over 100 senior government officials, academic administrators, scholars and health policy decision makers was designed for discussion of issues related to the development of the health care workforce in Central and Eastern Europe.
• Five Albanians and two New York University faculty participated in AIHA's 3rd Annual CEE Partnership Conference, held in Bucharest, Romania, in May. One of the main themes of the conference was partnership sustainability after the end of USAID/AIHA funding.
• An eight-day Introduction to Management Workshop was held in June in Tirana for 21 health care managers. The training was led by faculty from AUPHA, with assistance from four health management professionals from Butterworth Hospital and two Albanian financial experts who had previously attended AUPHA management workshops.
• In June, three Albanian partnership representatives attended the annual conferences of the Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA) and the Association for Health Service Research (AHSR) in Washington, DC. The AUPHA conference focused on how new technologies are shaping health care administration, research and education, while the theme of the AHSR conference was implications of health services research for health care policy, delivery and practice.
• In September, five Albanians participated in a Case Studies Development Workshop organized by AIHA in Bucharest, Romania. The workshop was attended by representatives of all five AIHA/HME partnerships. At the workshop, participants learned how to develop and write case studies as a didactic approach to teaching health management education.
• In October, a Learning Resource Center opened at the University of Tirana.
• From August through May 1999, partnership travel was restricted due to the Kosova-related crisis in Albania.

• Due to security concerns with travel to Albania, US and Albanian partners met in Istanbul, Turkey to discuss partnership progress and plan future activities.
• In October, NYU withdrew from the partnership program.

Health Management Curricula

• A new course in health management for undergraduate medical students has been designed and was taught for the first time during the fall 1998 term at the University of Tirana. The two faculty teaching the course spent eight weeks at NYU working with the Wagner faculty to design the course and prepare instructional materials including lectures.
• Partners established a health management education resource center located on the grounds of the University Hospital Center. Renovations of the site were completed in the summer of 1998, and AIHA provided equipment and educational materials including books and journals have been ordered.
• Three Learning Resource Centers have been successfully established at the Albanian partnership institu-tions, and Information Coordinators have participated in a series of training workshops organized by AIHA.

Policy Analysis

• Two members of the MOHEP spent one year at the Wagner School to earn a masters degree in policy analysis, with a view to staffing a policy analysis unit within the Ministry of Health. The new leadership at the MOHEP and in parliament modified the initial plan, and a staff unit for policy analysis within the MOHEP has not been created. However, the Minister did create a policy advisory council in February 1998, and the former Ministry officials trained at NYU are still actively involved in health care reform.

Additional Developments Since Partnership Graduation

• The US and NIS / CEE partners attended AIHA's 1999 Annual Partnership Conference in Arlington, VA. Prior to the conference they also participated in HME partner sharing meetings.
• AIHA continued to work with the Albanian partners and organize a study tour to AIHA's graduated HME partnerships in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in February 2000. The Albanian partners were able to forge a peer relationship with the Czech and Slovak partners to continue developing a health management program.