Development of a Surgical Capacity Index: Opportunities for Assessment and Improvement

Abstract

Pending pilot testing for reliability and validity, it appears that a systematic hospital surgical capacity index can identify areas for improvement and provide an objective measure for monitoring changes over time.

A Tool and Index to Assess Surgical Capacity in Low Income Countries: An Initial Implementation in Sierra Leone

“…Kwon et al [13] recently published a technique for calculating an index using the WHO tool. However, given the limitations of the WHO tool, the index is also relatively cumbersome to apply.…”

Assessing cesarean section and inguinal hernia repair as proxy indicators of the total number of surgeries performed in Sierra Leone in 2012

“…7,8 The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative has also developed and piloted a similar tool based on the WHO tool in Uganda, Rwanda, and Liberia. [9][10][11] Although these tools may have high degrees of reliability, they are both time and resource consuming.…”

Surgical outreach in rural South Africa: Are we managing to impart surgical skills?

“…[7][8][9] Such surgical outreach programmes, if not well planned, may merely deplete the regional referral hospital of skills and expertise and be of little benefit to the district hospital. It is essential to assess both the outputs and the outcomes of such programmes and audit their results.…”

“…The Bellagio Essential Surgery Group (BESG) and the World Health Organization (WHO) recommend that services at the district hospital level be strengthened by ongoing surgical training. [7][8][9] One strategy to achieve this is to take surgical expertise to the district hospitals with the aim of delivering clinical care and imparting surgical skills -known as the surgical outreach programme. [10][11][12][13][14] The Department of Health (DoH) in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) has run such a programme since the turn of the millennium.…”