Dr. Yasin ERKOÇ

Deputy Minister

Dr. Yasin Erkoç is a medical doctor, economist, manager, strategist and health system expert, and holds academic degrees in medicine, economics and management.

Having served as deputy chief physician, chief physician, chief advisor, deputy undersecretary, Dr. Erkoç worked as a member/coordinator/chairman in the Ministry of Health, Health Policies Board, Türkiye Health Transformation Program Coordinator, Türkiye Multi-Sector Health Responsibility Development Program Coordinator, Field Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator and Inter-Sectoral Children's Board.

He served as coordinator/consultant/representative of the MoH/leader in Eurostat “Health Statistics”, UNDP “Health System Strengthening and Supporting Project”, UNICEF “Country Program Action Plan”, OECD “Reviews of Health Systems”, OECD “Health Spending and Financial Sustainability”, WHO “Tobacco Control”, WHO “Health System Performance Assessment”, WHO “Strategic Health Communications Framework”, WHO “Assessment of Health Systems’ Crisis Preparedness”, WHO “Successful Health System Reforms” and WHO “New European Policy Framework Strategic Planning Model”.

Dr. Erkoç has been a part of the transformation team since the beginning of the Health Transformation Program of Türkiye and actively participated in the “Health Transformation” studies of all units of the Ministry. He has undertaken health policy development, strategic planning, analytical evaluation, system development, optimization, modeling, risk management and coordination duties. He is the first person to perform optimization modeling of healthcare professionals’ distribution in Türkiye.

He upgraded the data and processes used in health statistics and health economics -which are still valid- in the Ministry of Health to scientific and international standards.

He worked on both the establishment of the theoretical infrastructure of “health communication” (including editing books written with the World Health Organization) and its practical application in the Ministry of Health.

The “Health Strategic Plan” he led was shown as an example to countries that wanted to prepare a health strategic plan, a first in the history of the World Health Organization, and a case study was conducted.

He coordinated and managed the world’s largest scale “Health System Performance Evaluation” on behalf of the World Health Organization.

He served as a writer and editor in many books published by the Ministry of Health; he took part in academic studies and research conducted jointly with WHO, UNICEF and OECD.

Dr. Erkoç is the author of the book “Turkey Health Transformation Program Assessment Report”, which explains the philosophy and mathematics of the “Health Transformation Program”, shown as a role model in the world. The book, published in Arabic and English, has been cited as a reference in many studies by WHO, UNICEF and OECD.

Dr. Erkoç speaks English and Arabic. He is married with two children, and was born in Ordu/Gölköy in 1970.