The North East Department of Haiti is one of the most resource-constrained regions of Haiti, and capacity in existing health centers is limited. Fort Liberté hospital is the referral hospital for the North East, receiving critically ill and injured individuals from health centers throughout the region. The Emergency Department of the hospital is limited in its ability to provide time-sensitive and life-saving interventions through a lack of material resources and limited training in emergency care and resuscitation.
EMEDEX International is a US-based organization composed of Emergency Medicine physicians, which works to advance high-quality emergency care globally. The organization has been working in the North East Department of Haiti for approximately a decade on programs aimed at building emergency care capacity, and through its time there has formed partnerships with local health champions. These partners, including Fort Liberté Hospital and the Ministry of Health for the North East Department, have asked EMEDEX International to assist in improving care in the Emergency Department of the Fort Liberté Hospital.
Through an educational exchange program, EMEDEX International will sponsor senior residents in Emergency Medicine to spend approximately a month at a time at Fort Liberté’s Emergency Department. By functioning as part of a clinical team that emphasizes bidirectional learning, the residents will introduce emergency medicine topics such as triage, trauma evaluations, resuscitation, and bedside ultrasound, while learning about clinical presentations common in the North East of Haiti and developing a systems-based approach to quality improvement at the hospital.
EMEDEX International, with the support of these visiting residents, will be able to direct capacity-building efforts within the Emergency Department through a long-term, locally based approach to building high-quality emergency care.
