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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:
Schecter, Kate
Program Officer, Russia and the Caucasus
Washington kschecter@aiha.com

Avaliani, Nata
Regional Director
Tbilisi nata.avaliani@access.sanet.ge

 
USAID-funded partnership program helps Georgia establish the nation’s first baccalaureate degree program in nursing

Tbilisi, Georgia, and Washington, DC, February 13, 2006—The American International Health Alliance (AIHA) joined its partners at Tbilisi State University and the Atlanta-based nongovernmental organization Partners for International Development last week to announce the opening of a School of Allied Health and Nursing at Tbilisi State University in the Georgian capital. Offering the first baccalaureate-level degree program in nursing available in this Caucasus nation of 4.7 million people, this new school is poised to play a critical role in Georgia’s ongoing healthcare reform efforts.

This project was made possible through financial support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and is being conducted in close cooperation with the Ministry of Labor, Health, and Social Affairs and the Ministry of Education of Georgia. Additional support and technical assistance is being provided through the Trans-European Mobility Scheme for University Studies (TEMPUS), which is implemented by the European Network of Occupational Therapy in Higher Education.

Since the establishment of the first Tbilisi/Atlanta partnership in 1992, nursing has always had a strong presence in AIHA’s programs in Georgia. This partnership played an integral role in the creation of the Georgian Nursing Association, which since 1995 has been working to elevate the profession through the dissemination of modern nursing practices and evidence-based medicine to its members. A second partnership between healthcare institutions in Tbilisi and Atlanta was launched in 2002 and has continued to empower nurses through advanced training and education, as well as new opportunities for professional growth and advancement. Additionally, through this partnership two new Nursing Resource Centers were established at Gudushauri National Medical Center and Iashvili Children's Central Hospital.

“We are very proud that the four master trainers who will serve as principal faculty for the nursing program at the School of Allied Health and Nursing were trained through the Tbilisi/Atlanta partnership,” AIHA Executive Director James P. Smith says. “Through this partnership, these nursing professionals completed a full semester of training at Emory University's Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, earning post-graduate certificates from the school's Teaching Institute. The knowledge and skills they obtained during the three-month program will enable them to teach baccalaureate-level courses that reflect the most up-to-date practices in the field of nursing care.”

The new nursing school is a testament to a successful international collaboration that has spanned more than a decade and will help Georgia’s ongoing efforts to provide high-quality, cost-effective healthcare services to its citizens.

Created in 1992 by a consortium of major healthcare provider associations and professional medical education organizations, AIHA establishes and manages twinning partnerships between health-related institutions in the United States and their counterparts in Africa, Asia, Eurasia, and the Caribbean. Since its inception, AIHA has supported more than 120 partnerships linking dedicated volunteers in the United States with communities, institutions, and individual colleagues overseas in a concerted effort to improve health service delivery in countries with limited resources. Operating under various cooperative agreements and grants from US and international donor agencies including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID); the US Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA); the World Health Organization (WHO); the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), AIHA, its partnerships, and complementary programs represent one of the US healthcare sector’s most coordinated responses to global health issues. Support for the HIV/AIDS Twinning Center is provided by HRSA, a leading provider of HIV/AIDS care and treatment services to underserved populations in resource-poor settings in the United States and, more recently, throughout the world.

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