Health management education partnerships: more than technology transfer

This article presents the reflections of three faculty members from New York University based on more than two years of experience in a health management education (HME) partnership with institutions in the Republic of Albania. The most significant point to be shared with colleagues considering similar initiatives in other countries is that aiding other professionals in developing health management education programs involves much more than the transfer of technical information among professionals. Based on experience in Albania, we argue that the development of viable management and policy analysis programs will require assistance to counterparts in Central and Eastern Europe in: (1) building constituencies for these activities among influential leaders and sustaining this support through changes in government; (2) providing models of and motivations for using styles of pedagogy that vary significantly from those now common in this part of the world; and (3) reconciling conflicts between pressures for investments in the largely hospital-based activity of health management and the largely public-health-based needs of relatively poor countries.