Background: Short-term medical missions (STMMs) are a well-established means of providing health care to the developing world. Despite over 250 million dollars and thousands of volunteer hours dedicated to STMMs, there is a lack of standardized evaluation to assess patient safety, quality control, and mission impact. The objective of this project is to design and implement an assessment tool that defines objective parameters of quality of care as identified by STMMs.

Due to a flaw in the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification coding system, epidemiology of skin and soft-tissue infections (SSTIs) has conflated abscess with other SSTIs. We analyzed emergency department visits during 1997-2007, finding that the odds of abscess relative to any other diagnosis increased 11% per year, or 3.1-fold, whereas other SSTIs increased minimally.

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