The town of Nor Hachen is located in Armenia’s Kotayk Region. Approximately 8,400 people call this community home. Nor Hachen has a fully staffed polyclinic with three pediatricians and five family medicine doctors that serve the medical needs of the Nor Hachen community, schools, and outlying villages. The total service area of the Clinic is almost 13,000 people. Nor Hachen Polyclinic provides primary care, ambulance service and some specialty services. Many of the doctors at the center also work in Yerevan as Nor Hachen’s proximity to the city is about 30 minutes away. The medical center lacks some basic equipment that prevents it from successfully serving its patients.
Nor Hachen Polyclinic with Med Aid Armenia aims to achieve their mission of bringing western standards of medical care to the community. This will be done with evidence-based medicine, screening programs and preventive care practices. This will achieve improved health outcomes coupled with efficient use of resources to provide a sustainable model of care delivery.
The Nor Hachen Polyclinic operates on sparse resources, and mostly in the form of outdated and decrepit equipment carry-over from the Soviet-era. Care delivery at Nor Hachen is also mostly Soviet-era style, unlike some newer clinics in the capital, Yerevan. The clinic operates on a single payer system with the option of fee-for-service.
Specialty services available include cardiology, HNS, ophthalmology, neurology, gastroenterology, OB/GYN and minor surgical procedures. Some of these specialists are available several times a week. Limited laboratory and imaging services available hamper the clinic staff ability to provide quality and complete care, necessitating referral out for the services at cost to the patient for significantly more, and often preventing the patient from getting the care needed. The clinic is eager for basic resources and developing improved knowledge in delivering care.
Over the last 3 years, Med Aid Armenia has developed a working relationship with the staff at the Polyclinic. Spending more time at the clinic, we are able to see firsthand the struggles of care delivery and an inefficient system. The remainder of Armenia is also struggling with its health care, especially primary care, notably those areas outside of Yerevan.
What makes Nor Hachen unique is its location, the size of population it serves, and the open-minded eager staff committed to learn and improve. The clinic’s 30-minute drive distance from Yerevan gives relatively ease of access: Diasporan physicians and clinic resources would not need to travel far. The population is large enough to implement significant programs and study its effectiveness. This can be done without overwhelming resources typically required for national level programs.
Med Aid Armenia set out to create a program at the Nor Hachen Polyclinic with the ultimate goal of improving health outcomes of the population with grounded and sustainable use of resources and improving the wellness of the clinic staff.
