History of the Transatlantic Health Science Consortium
continued


In the US, health care reform and the advent of managed care has dramatically changed the environment in which American health care educators traditionally have operated. In this changing environment health care educators are responsible for training future health care practitioners and will be evaluated based upon their ability to educate adequately and completely these future providers for the varied environments in which they may practice.

Europeans are also undergoing changes in their health care systems to reflect more decentralized approaches to the delivery and funding of health care. Emphasis on continuous quality improvement and clinical management techniques are hallmarks of the European approach to managing their health care systems in a dynamic environment. Greater recognition is given to managing the interface between primary and secondary care. This accentuates the need for better liaison services and the development of social care models.

Likewise, the European social and political context has defined the nature of the practice of the health professions that is different from the American experience. Up until now, there has been a limited need to pursue such organized and structured transatlantic programs. Most efforts to date have been an individual entrepreneurial endeavor.

Because of limited resources available for this project and the breadth and complexities of all of the disciplines within Allied Health, the cooperating institutions decided to establish a model for the Consortium using an allied health discipline that is common to all consortium partners. We have initially chosen biomedical science/clinical laboratory science because of its commonality across the consortium members and the rapid advances made in technology transfer such as the human genome project that will redefine how we diagnose and treat patients and will be universal in the next millennium.

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