"Below presented project – Simulation in Undergraduate MEDical Education for Improvement of SAFEty and Quality of Patient Care (SAFEMED+) serves to tackle important issues, related to undergraduate medical education in Georgia, Armenia and Ukraine, which takes roots back from collapse of Soviet Union and crush of soviet educational system. Despite progressive steps, taken by partner countries towards adopting wester values and implementing up-to-date trends within educational systems as well, undergraduate medical education and practical training of prospective medical professionals particularly, yet remains to be a weak link on the regional level. Taking into consideration national and regional priorities, as well as common needs, was born an idea to develop a project, which would address existing common challenges, yet provide bespoke solutions for given concerns of participating institutions. The project SAFEMED+ was first introduced during KA-2 CBHE call 2016-2017, under name SAFEMED and with rather different formation of consortia, which was shortlisted and placed among reserve projects with best positive feedbacks and valuable recommendations for further improvement. Addition of ""+"" in acronym indicates addition of simulations to the essential body of the project, implying development of all necessary types of simulations, which may be used on the undergraduate stage of medical education, including standardized patients, mannequin-equipped clinical skills laboratory, clinical scenarios, OSCE examinations etc; in order to create a continuum of clinical competences across the curriculum, starting from the first year of studies in Competency Based Medical Education based Curriculum.The enhancement of patient care safety and quality by promoting simulated learning of Clinical Skills implemented in Competency Based Medical Education based Curriculum in Undergraduate Students is the primary impact of the SAFEMED+."

The ultimate goal of this project is to enhance quality of medical/health education in the countries of Eastern Partnership (Georgia, Moldova, Belarus) and Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan) through setting instruments and goals of peer review. 12 institutions in 5 partner countries will take an advantage of knowledge and expertise share from 2 institutions from Bulgaria and Lithuania. The relative uniformity of problems in higher medical/health education in partner countries are derived from the common past. Through different capacity building interventions, execution of peer reviews, knowledge sharing, laying foundation for sustainability and wider dissemination of project’s end products, we envisage the following results to be achieved: 1. Increased awareness on peer review process in academic and administrative domains in partner country institutions; 2. A Multinational Peer Review Board (MPRB) established; 3. Consistency of a continuous peer review process in partner country institutions achieved; 4. Capacity of faculty members and administrative staff in: a. conducting effective self assessment tasks; and b. peer reviewing their vis-à-vis increased; 5. An annual scientific-practical journal of “Peer Review in Medical/Health Education for Eastern Europe and Central Asia” (PRIMED-EECA) established; 6. The level of internationalization of HEIs elevated; 7. Awareness on project’s achievements among the key stakeholders increased. The project will ensure that the achieved results are sustainable and being exploited in the foreseeable future by establishing the above mentioned journal and an independent cross-national Peer Review Association for Medical/Health Education of Eastern Europe and Central Asia (PRAMED-EECA) aimed at: a. Providing a pool of highly qualified and readily available peer reviewers; and b. Assisting medical schools in the targeted regions in effectively preparing for international accreditation.