The Balashikha Project
There is no simple way, no single intervention strategy such as a vaccine for polio, to reduce maternal or perinatal morbidity.
The World Health Organization Collaborating Center in Reproductive Health (WHO/CC/RH) of Atlanta, through its health services research and international experience, has found that the presence of a complete and functioning reproductive and perinatal health care delivery system is essential to improving the outcomes of pregnancy - for reducing maternal and infant mortality.
This project, called the Balashikha Project, was organized and is being implemented in partnership with the WHO/CC/RH in Atlanta.
Key Components of the Balashikha Project
- A medical education and training program for the health professionals (obstetricians, gynecologists, pediatricians, nurse midwives, pediatric nurses, epidemiologists and public health physicians). This program will provide knowledge and skills to develop a modern reproductive and perinatal health care delivery system with:
- Evidence-based clinical care with practice guidelines
- Modern public health standards and management practices
- Perinatal epidemiology surveillance
- Postgraduate education with a distance-learning component
- Modernization, including remodeling and recommendations for reorganization of services, of the Balashikha Maternity House designated on July 1, 2003, to be the Moscow Region Perinatal Center. This facility will now function as a regional perinatal care facility for high-risk mothers and infants and a perinatal health education center for the Moscow Oblast.
- Continued review and analysis of world public health law and its application to systemic reform in Russia.
The Potential of the Balashikha Project
The Balashikha Project will focus on the improvement of pregnancy outcomes in the Balashikha health district. When the three strategies of the Balashikha Project are simultaneously and universally implemented in the Moscow Oblast over the next five years, the excessive and tragic mortality rates (adjusted) for both mother and newborn infant can be reduced by some 50%.
The Ministry of Health of the Russia Federation is following the Balashikha Project. This project could serve as the vehicle for improving all components of the reproductive, perinatal, and infant health care system throughout the entire Russian Federation. From the international experiences of WHO/CC/RH, the Balashikha Project is seen as having the greatest potential for imparting major system reform for reproductive and perinatal health care than in any of the 30 other countries in which WHO/CC/RH has worked.
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