MedCOI

Medical Country of Origin Information

About MedCOI

The EUAA provides access to medical country of origin information (MedCOI). This information supports the national migration and asylum authorities in Europe to reach accurate and fair decisions in international protection and other migration procedures. More precisely, MedCOI is a service for national migration and asylum authorities solely, providing responses to requests for information about the availability and accessibility of medical interventions in countries of origin.

EUAA MedCOI relies on a worldwide network of medical experts that provides up-to-date medical information in countries of origin. Based on this information and combined with desk research, the EUAA MedCOI Sector produces responses to individual requests from EU+ countries, general medical country reports, and maintains a portal with a specific database where the information can be found. The portal also allows for the continuous exchange of information between countries, and between countries and EUAA. The database is only accessible to trained personnel in EUAA and the EU+ countries' relevant administrations. Completion of the MedCOI training modules (specific training on the use of the MedCOI database and on MedCOI methodologies) is a necessary requirement to be granted access.

The high quality and medical accuracy of the information is guaranteed by specifically trained medical advisors and research experts who also provide guidance to the users of the portal.

MedCOI users have access to the relevant data protection notice, using this link: MedCOI Data Protection Notice .

Methodology and sources

General COI sources are used, such as information from international and non-governmental organisations, governmental sources, academic texts, and media sources obtained through both direct desk research or contracted agencies. In addition, individual experts in the country of origin are engaged by EUAA, selected from a pool of remunerated experts (Call for expressions of interest for local MedCOI experts). These local experts undergo an internal selection and the quality of the information they provide is continually assessed.

The research of information is conducted in accordance with the established COI methodology as outlined in the EUAA Country of Origin (COI) Report Methodology.

EUAA MedCOI is continuously subject to internal and external quality assurance activities such as validations, audits, and peer reviews.

Involvement of EU+ countries

EUAA has established a two-tier advisory system to receive inputs from the EU+ countries on their information needs and on the overall service. The system is composed of a group of country representatives (MedCOI Strategic Network - StratNet) including all interested EU+ countries, providing advice at more long-term, strategic level, and a smaller group (MedCOI Advisory Committee) advising on issues of more operational nature.

Some representatives of the EU+ countries have provided their opinion on the MedCOI service as the main source for reliable and high-quality medical Country of Origin Information. The videos are published on social media (Twitter) here and here.