Dr. Sali Berisha, Prime Minister of Albania, and Alexander Arvizu U.S. Ambassador to Albania, attended the opening of the USAID funded National Telemedicine Center of Albania located at the Mother Theresa University Hospital Center (TUHC). In addition there are five regional telemedicine centers located in Kukes, Shkoder, Durres, Korce, and Vlore.
The Center will serve as the foundation for a national telemedicine and e-health network covering Albania that will directly address the issue of rural access to patients and their care along with medical education for health professionals.
The U.S. based International Virtual e-Hospital (IVeH) developed and built the National Telemedicine Center of Albania as part of the Integrated Telemedicine and e-Health Program of Albania.
The establishment of the Center was conducted in partnership with USAID, the Albanian Ministry of Health, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of Defense Cooperation, and the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers.
Charles Doarn IVeH Executive Director and Professor of Public Health Sciences, at the University of Cincinnati served as Master of Ceremony at the inaugural opening event where an unveiling of a plaque took place by Dr. Petrit Vasili, the Albanian Minister of Health, Visho Ajazaj, Deputy Minister of Innovation and Communication and Technology, and Salmir Ivziku, Director of TUHC.
The delegation participated in a program linking sites with the U.S and telemedicine centers in Albania. Dr. Rifat Latifi, Project Director, President and Founder of IVeH and Professor of Surgery at the Unversity of Arizona, in Baltimore Maryland and Dr. Ronald Merrell, Vice President for IVeH and Professor of Surgery at Virginia Commonwealth University located in Richmond Virginia participated. IVeH’s Dr. Erion Dasho provided a demonstration of ViteNet’s telemedicine unit which was linked live to offices in McLean Virginia.
For more information, go to www.iveh.org.
