Early History

PACEMD Mexico AC (Civil Association) was incorporated in 2002 with a social mission to improve the quality of emergency care patients receive in underserved areas of Latin America. In 2002, PACE began formally teaching emergency care and consulting with the Health Ministry of Guanajuato (GTO). The organization was also a pioneer in the medical Spanish training/global health field, providing immersion experiences to health providers and students from the US.

The program, which is still successfully in operation, is named MedSpanish. This program provides continuing medical education credits provided by the University of New Mexico. Professionals and medical students from different Universities and Institutions of very high prestige in the United States have come to our sites in Mexico to learn Spanish in a medical context.

The government and Red Cross found it difficult to provide grants for these services, and found it easier to accept training services from PACE through the contracting of services. This is how PACE AC and Centro PACE S de RL developed into a hybrid non-profit / for-profit organization.

Starting to Scale

From 2006 to the present day, PACE began aggregating different certification programs into its Latin American business model. 

PACE is the only training center in Mexico and Panama affiliated with the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and licensed to teach the following courses in obstetric emergencies; ALSO (Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics) BLSO (Basic Life Support in Obstetrics) and CLSO (Community Life Support in Obstetrics). To date, over 14,000 providers have been trained in these protocols. 

Starting in 2004, PACE was only the 3rd training center in Mexico to offer American Heart Association (AHA) courses, and have certified more than 17,000 healthcare providers in the country.

Thanks to the multi-faceted advocacy work of the founder, Dr. Haywood Hall, PACE became a member of the International Federation of Emergency Medicine (IFEM) in 2008. The organization brought Panama, Ecuador, Venezuela and Cuba into the IFEM as full members.

In 2012 PACE was recognized as a Centre of Excellence for ALSO International, due to its high standards of quality the number of trained providers and the quality of education provided by the instructors.

 In 2014 PACE began offering National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT) courses in PreHospital Trauma and Advanced Medical Life Support.

 Present Day

PACE’s paying customers are mostly government agencies but also include the private and voluntary sector. The people who receive the majority of training from these courses are government employees. The greatest social impact of these efforts is that of saving lives at birth, almost exclusively in underserved communities: both urban and rural and of developing new models for emergency care training. But there are many more courses on the way, and PACE is making it all possible through its international and national network and partnerships with technology providers to reach patients who just a few years ago were inaccessible.