Lancet Commission On Global Surgery Research Articles

Measurements of Surgical Volume in Low- and Middle-Income Countries, a Systematic Review.

Surgical volume is a surgical indicator that was described in the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCoGS) and the World Bank World Development Indicators as an important metric for tracking the delivery of surgical care. We aimed to characterize the reports on surgical volume (SV) in the existing literature by using a systematic review to assess studies that examine surgical procedures as a ratio of a population (procedures/100,000 population). The PRISMA guideline was employed in the systematic review of articles that addressed the measurement of SV in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), with the primary outcome of surgical procedures/100,000 population. The search result consisted of 6,657 preliminary studies. Following the title and abstract screening, 6,464 articles were excluded, and the remaining 193 were included in the full text review. From the full text review of the 193, only 26 of these articles defined SV as the ratio of number of procedures per population of the catchment/geographical area. The reported SV was a mean of 765, with an SD of 1260 operations per 100,000. The median SV was 180 (min = 0.900, max = 4470). Our findings support the LCoGS assessment of the gap in surgical care. The target for SV is 5000 per 100,000 population, compared to the average of 765 per 100,000 population as found in this review. The challenges for assessing surgical volume gaps are vast, including the nature of written records, which limits SV reports to an absolute number of procedures per year without a reference to the catchment population. For the purpose of tracking SV, we recommend using proxies that account for the capacity of facilities to deliver care regardless of the catchment population.

Incorporating surgical and anesthesia care into universal health care: a national plan for the development of surgery in Madagascar.

Efforts have been made to strengthen national health systems for safe, affordable, and timely surgical, obstetric, trauma, and anesthesia (SOTA) care since 2015 when the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCoGS) identified critical needs in improving access to essential surgical care for five billion people worldwide. Several governments have developed National Surgical, Obstetric, and Anesthesia Plans (NSOAPs) as a commitment to ensuring safe and accessible surgical care for all of their population. The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) of Madagascar launched its NSOAP in May 2019, named Le Plan National de Développement de la Chirurgie a Madagascar (PNDCHM). This policy established Madagascar as the first African francophone country to define concrete objectives for the Malagasy health system to meet the targets set by the LCoGS by 2030. The PNDCHM outlined the following priorities and specific action points to be implemented from 2019 to 2023: improving technical capacity, training human resources, developing a health information system, ensuring adequate governance and leadership, offering quality care, creating specific surgical services, and financing and mobilizing resources for implementation. Challenges encountered in the process included complex coordination between different stakeholders, allocating a sufficient budget for its implementation, frequent turnover within the MoPH, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The PNDCHM is a first of its kind in francophone Africa and the many lessons learned can serve as guidance for countries aspiring to build NSOAPs of their own.

Evaluating the status of the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery indicators for India.

For universal surgical, obstetric, trauma, and anesthesia care by 2030, the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCoGS) suggested tracking six indicators. We reviewed academic and policy literature to investigate the current state of LCoGS indicators in India. There was limited primary data for access to timely essential surgery, risk of impoverishing and catastrophic health expenditures due to surgery, though some modeled estimates are present. Surgical specialist workforce estimates are heterogeneous across different levels of care, urban and rural areas, and diverse health sectors. Surgical volumes differ widely across demographic, socio-economic, and geographic cohorts. Perioperative mortality rates vary across procedures, diagnoses, and follow-up time periods. Available data suggest India falls short of achieving global targets. This review highlights the evidence gap for India's surgical care planning. India needs a systematic subnational mapping of indicators and adaptation of targets as per the country's health needs for equitable and sustainable planning.

Pathways to effective surgical coverage in a lower-middle-income country: A multiple methods study of the family physician-led generalist surgical team in rural Nepal.

The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCoGS) recommends using specialist surgical workforce density as one of 6 core indicators for monitoring universal access to safe, affordable surgical and anaesthesia care. Using Nepal as a case study, we explored the capacity of a generalist workforce (led by a family physician or MD general practitioner and non-physician anaesthetist) to enable effective surgical delivery through task-shifting. Using a multiple-methods approach, we retrospectively mapped essential surgical care and the enabling environment for surgery in 39 hospitals in 25 remote districts in Nepal and compared it with LCoGS indicators. All 25 districts performed surgery, 21 performed Caesarean section (CS), and 5 met at least 50% of district CS needs. Generalist surgical teams performed CS, the essential major operation at the district level, and very few laparotomies, but no operative orthopaedics. The density of specialist Surgeon/Anaesthesiologist/Obstetrician (SAO) was 0·4/100,000; that of Generalist teams (gSAO) led by a family physician (MD General Practitioners-MDGP) supported by non-physician anaesthetists was eight times higher at 3·1/100,000. gSAO presence was positively associated with a two-fold increase in CS availability. All surgical rates were well below LCoGS targets. 46% of hospitals had adequate enabling environments for surgery, 28% had functioning anaesthesia machines, and 75% had blood transfusion services. Despite very low SAO density, and often inadequate enabling environment, surgery can be done in remote districts. gSAO teams led by family physicians are providing essential surgery, with CS the commonest major operation. gSAO density is eight times higher than specialists and they can undertake more complex operations than just CS alone. These family physician-led functional teams are providing a pathway to effective surgical coverage in remote Nepal.

Strengthening rural surgery in the Philippines: Essential in achieving universal health care.

The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCoGS) launched Global Surgery 2030 to address the surgical services inequities with a bias toward low-income and middle-income countries like the Philippines. The same inequity is observed particularly when it comes to the urban-rural divide. With more than half of the population living in rural areas, access to surgery becomes a major challenge that further impedes the much-needed health of an economically productive workforce. The Universal Health Care [UHC] Act (RA 11332) of 2019 ensures that all Filipinos have access to quality, cost-effective, promotive, preventive, curative, rehabilitative, and palliative health services without causing a financial burden. Recognizing the provision of essential surgery, in the context of primary healthcare is important. It should be accessible, continuous, comprehensive, and coordinated at the time of need - parallel to the principle of primary health care. Driven by this concept and experiences, the authors conceptualized and presented the Philippine Rural Surgery model for future development and implementation. This is envisioned to provide essential surgery among local rural primary health care settings that is universal, accessible, cost-effective and safe. As this is still new in the Philippines, we proposed tenets and recommendations based on WHO Health System Strengthening building blocks to guide stakeholders in creating formal plans towards institutionalization under the principles of UHC. Such access to surgical service in the context of a unique socio-demography of the Philippines would be essential in attaining the parameters and provisions set by the UHC Act.

P04 Bibliometric study in global sugery

Abstract Background In 2015, The Lancet Commission on Global surgery (LCoGS) published a report highlighting the growing burden of surgical disease worldwide. The need for Global surgery research was emphasised in developing high-quality surgical care, especially in lower and middle-income countries (LMICs). We aim to assess the current state of global surgery research, illuminate trends within and discuss the impact of the report. Methods A literature search identified all clinical research in the global surgery field published between 2015 and 2019. Three databases - MEDLINE, Web of Science and the Cochrane Library were used to identify articles screened by a minimum of two independent authors against eligibility criteria, using a method adapted from the PRISMA guidelines. These articles were categorised to describe trends including number of articles published, surgical conditions, study types, and geographical author distribution. All methods utilised have adhered to an a-priori protocol. Results 1,495 from 5,272 eligible articles were analysed. The number of global surgery research articles increased from 288 in 2015 to 314 articles in 2019. 65% focused on surgical conditions treatable with basic interventions. 49% of Global surgery research articles involved authors from high income countries. Conclusion We have summarised the current state of global surgery research since publication of the LCoGS 2015 report. Though research output is still minimal from countries with greatest clinical need, the overall trend highlights progression in research made by LMICs, notably through establishing global research collaborations. Our findings demonstrate additional efforts are necessary to further improve research output in LMICs. Take-home message Research output is still minimal from countries with greatest clinical need, the overall trend highlights progression in research made by LMICs, notably through establishing global research collaborations.

Need For A Surgical Plan In Ghana

Over the past two decades, the global health community has increasingly recognised the need to include surgery, obstetric and anaesthesia care (SOA) in its concept of universal health coverage in any national plan. Surgical conditions (including obstetric conditions) represent a leading contributor to the global burden of disease accounting for a third of all disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) incurred annually. In the study published by the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCoGS), it is stated that about five billion of the world’s 7.5 billion people do not have access to safe and affordable surgical, obstetrics, trauma and anaesthesia care when needed. Among those who are fortunate to have surgery done, 33 million will face catastrophic health expenditure due to payment for surgery and anaesthesia each year. This fact is ever so true for most low-and middle income countries (LMIC) and the Lancet Commission has proposed the use of six core indicators to assess the surgical system of a country. These indicators include specialist surgical workforce per 100,000; number of surgical procedures per 100,000; risk of catastrophic expenditure for surgical care; risk of impoverishing expenditure; postoperative mortality rate and 2-hour access to Bellwether procedures. Of these six indicators, four have been published by the World Bank as World Development Indicators (WDIs).

A granular analysis of service delivery for surgical system strengthening: Application of the Lancet indicators for policy development in Colombia

The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCoGS) surgical indicators have given the surgical community metrics for objectively characterizing the disparity in access to surgical healthcare. However, aggregate national statistics lack sufficient specificity to inform strengthening plans at the community level. We performed a second-stage analysis of Colombian surgical system service delivery to inform the development of resource- and context-sensitive interventions to inform a revision of the Decennial Public Health Plan for access inequity resolution. Data from the year 2016 to inform total operative volume (TOV) and 30-day non-risk adjusted peri-operative mortality (POMR) were collected from the Colombian national health information system. TOV and POMR were sub-characterized by demographics, urgency, service line, disease pathology and facility location. In 2016, aggregate national mortality was 0·87%, while mortality attributable to elective and emergency surgery was 0·73% and 1·30%, respectively. The elderly experienced a 5·6-fold higher mortality, with 4·2% undergoing an operation within 30 days of dying. Individuals undergoing hepatobiliary, thoracic, cardiac, and neurosurgical operations experienced the highest mortality rates while obstetrics, general surgery, orthopaedics, and urology performed the largest procedure volume. Finally, analysis of operation and service line specific POMR reveals opportunities for improvement. This granular second-stage analysis provides actionable data which is fundamental to the development of resource and context-sensitive interventions to address gaps and inequities in surgical system service delivery. Furthermore, this analysis validates the modeling underlying development of the LCoGS indicators. These data will inform the assessment of implementation priorities and revision of the Colombian Decennial Public Health Plan. None.

A Narrative Review of Kenya's Surgical Capacity Using the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery's Indicator Framework.

Surgery, anesthesia, and obstetric (SAO) care is quickly being recognized for its critical role in cost-effectively improving global morbidity and mortality. Six core indicators for SAO capacity were established in 2015 by the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCoGS) and include: SAO provider density, population proximity to surgery-ready facilities, annual national operative volume, a system to track perioperative mortality rate, and protection from impoverishing and catastrophic expenditures. The surgical capacity of Kenya, a lower-middle-income country, has not been evaluated using this framework. Our goal was to review published literature on surgery in Kenya to assess the country's surgical capacity and system strength. A narrative review of the relevant literature provided estimates for each LCoGS indicator. While progress has been made in expanding access to care across the country, key steps remain in the effort to provide equitable, affordable, and timely care to Kenya's population through universal health coverage. Additional investment into training SAO providers, operative infrastructure, and accessibility are recommended through a national surgery, obstetric, and anesthesia plan.

Improving Global Surgical Oncology Benchmarks: Defining the Unmet Need for Cancer Surgery in Ghana.

The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCoGS) recommended an annual surgical rate at which low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) could achieve most of the population-wide benefits of surgery. However, condition-specific guidelines were not proposed. To inform rates of surgery for cancer, we sought to assess the current met and unmet need for oncologic surgery in Ghana. Data on all operations performed in Ghana over a one-year period (2014-15) were obtained from representative samples of 48/124 first-level and 12/16 referral hospitals and scaled-up for nationwide estimates. Procedures for cancer were identified by indication. Using modified LCoGS methodology with disease prevalence, Ghana's annual rate of cancer surgery was compared to that of New Zealand to quantify current unmet needs. 232,776 surgical procedures were performed in Ghana; 2,562 procedures (95%UI 1878-3255) were for cancer. Of these, 964 (37%) were surgical biopsies. The annual rate of procedures treating cancer was 2115 surgeries/100,000 cancer cases, or 21% of the New Zealand benchmark. Cervical, breast, and prostate cancer were found to meet 2.1%, 17.2%, and 32.1% of their respective surgical need. There is a large unmet need for cancer surgery in Ghana. Cancer surgery constitutes under 2% of the total surgeries performed in Ghana, an important proportion of which are used for biopsies. Therapeutic operative rate is deficient across most cancer types, and may lag behind improvements in screening efforts. As cancer prevalence and diagnosis increase in LMICs, cancer-specific surgical capacity must be increased to meet these evolving needs.

Potentially Avertable Child Mortality Associated with Surgical Workforce Scale-up in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Global Study.

Expansion of access to surgical care can improve health outcomes, although the impact that scale-up of the surgical workforce will have on child mortality is poorly defined. In this study, we estimate the number of child deaths potentially avertable by increasing the surgical workforce globally to meet targets proposed by the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery. To estimate the number of deaths potentially avertable through increases in the surgical workforce, we used log-linear regression to model the association between surgeon, anesthetist and obstetrician workforce (SAO) density and surgically amenable under-5 mortality rate (U5MR), infant mortality rate (IMR), and neonatal mortality rate (NMR) for 192 countries adjusting for potential confounders of childhood mortality, including the non-surgical workforce (physicians, nurses/midwives, community health workers), gross national income per capita, poverty rate, female literacy rate, health expenditure per capita, percentage of urban population, number of surgical operations, and hospital bed density. Surgically amenable mortality was determined using mortality estimates from the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation adjusted by the proportion of deaths in each country due to communicable causes unlikely to be amenable to surgical care. Estimates of mortality reduction due to upscaling surgical care to support the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCoGS) minimum target of 20-40 SAO/100,000 were calculated accounting for potential increases in surgical volume associated with surgical workforce expansion. Increasing SAO workforce density was independently associated with lower surgically amenable U5MR as well as NMR (p < 0.01 for each model). When accounting for concomitant increases in surgical volume, scale-up of the surgical workforce to 20-40 SAO/100,000 could potentially prevent between 262,709 (95% CI 229,643-295,434) and 519,629 (465,046-573,919) under 5 deaths annually. The majority (61%) of deaths averted would be neonatal deaths. Scale up of surgical workforce may substantially decrease childhood mortality rates around the world. Our analysis suggests that scale-up of surgical delivery through increase in the SAO workforce could prevent over 500,000 children from dying before the age of 5 annually. This would represent significant progress toward meeting global child mortality reduction targets.

The Need for Global Surgery Education in the United States Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Training Pipeline

Over 5,000,000,000 individuals worldwide lack access to reliable and safe surgical and anesthesia care - with the worst access to surgical services found in low-income and low-middle-income countries.1 The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCGS) has established targets to address the unmet burden of surgical care worldwide, highlighting that 2.28 million more surgical, anesthetic, and obstetric providers (SAOs) are needed to enter the global surgery workforce between 2015 to 2030.1

Role of North America and AANS in Global Neurosurgery

Approximately 28% of the global burden of disease is surgical (1). There is an estimated deficit of 90,909 neurosurgeons globally, whomust care for an additional 14 million neurosurgical patients annually (2). In a study published by Alkire et al. on global access tosurgical care, it was revealed that approximately two-thirds of the world's population, comprising 4.8 billion people, do not have accessto timely, affordable, or safe surgical care. The study also concluded that 99.3% of Lower-Income Countries (LICs) and 96.7% of LowerMiddle-Income Countries (LMICs) populations do not have access to safe surgery (3). Historically, global health policies focused onspecific issues like access to healthcare and outcomes of infectious disease treatment and vaccinations. In January 2014, the LancetCommission on Global Surgery (LCoGS), headed by healthcare leaders from 111 countries, gathered in Boston to research and pro posestrategies to improve surgery access globally. One of the committee's goals was to bring surgeons from different socio-economic strataunder one roof to facilitate collaboration and fruitful exchange of ideas. The committee also motivated the higher -income countries ofNorth America to collaborate and shrink the existing hiatus in surgical access present in lower and middle-income countries (4). Sincethen, significant progress has been achieved in this regard under the leadership of North American academic institutes, neurosurgicalsocieties, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and even individual surgeons (1,5)

Interpreting the Lancet surgical indicators in Somaliland: a cross-sectional study

BackgroundThe unmet burden of surgical care is high in low-income and middle-income countries. The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCoGS) proposed six indicators to guide the development of national plans...

Beyond technology: review of systemic innovation stories in global surgery

: Since the launch of the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCOGS) in 2015, significant attention and interest have been invested in breaking down the barriers that prevent universal access to essential surgical, obstetric and anesthesia (SOA) services. Improving access to surgical care in low-resource areas, whether in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) or within vulnerable populations in high-income countries (HICs), requires stakeholders to think outside of the box. Innovation, or the process of creatively resolving a problem, is a crucial strategy for addressing complex challenges in global health and global surgery. While technology has traditionally taken the spotlight, novel ideas that support surgical systems strengthening and advance the agenda of achieving access for all should also be highlighted. This narrative review will focus on the principal ideas and trends in global surgery innovation, stretching beyond habitual technological advancements. By centering the narrative around non-technological achievements, we will explore emerging ideas that are transforming infrastructures in health systems strengthening, financial capacity, advocacy, and research and partnerships. From the development of National Surgical, Obstetric, and Anesthesia Plans (NSOAPs) to the creation of collaborative authorship, systemic innovations have and will continue to improve the delivery and quality of essential surgical services in areas of need around the world.

Universal access to safe, affordable, timely surgical and anaesthetic care in Papua New Guinea: the six global health indicators.

The unmet global burden of surgical disease is substantial. The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCoGS) estimated that 5 billion people do not have access to safe, affordable and timely surgical care, with 80% of those without access living in low- and middle-income countries. The Milne Bay Province (pop 331 000) of Papua New Guinea, with an archipelago of islands up to 750 km from its capital, Alotau, has only one hospital capable of performing Caesarean Section, Emergency Laparotomy and managing an open fracture, the three Bellwether procedures. This paper aims to report the six Lancet Commission on Global Surgery metrics for Milne Bay Province. The study was conducted between January and August 2019. Bellwether access was investigated by a prospective study on 115 patients presenting to hospital. The surgical, anaesthesia and obstetric (SAO) workforce, surgical volume and perioperative mortality rate, were calculated for 2012-2018 from hospital records and operation registers. Financial risk metrics were calculated by surveying 50 patients at discharge from hospital. Bellwether access: Only 27.8% (n = 32) of the study population (n = 115) experienced less than 2-hours second delay (journey time to hospital). The average SAO provider density was 1.8 per 100 000 population. There were 606 procedures performed per 100 000 with a mean annual perioperative mortality rate of 0.3%. Catastrophic expenditure is a risk for 29% of the population. Milne Bay Province can perform surgery safely, but there is limited access to timely surgical care when needed with a significant proportion put at financial risk by requiring it.

How will increasing surgical volume affect mortality in the Pacific, Papua New Guinea and Timor Leste?

Nine South Pacific nations, Papua New Guinea and Timor Leste, have collaborated to report and publish their surgical metrics as recommended by the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCoGS). Currently, these countries experience about 750 postoperative deaths per year, representing 1% of crude mortality in the region. Given that more than 400 000 annual procedures are needed in the nine nations to reach the LCoGS target of 5000/100 000, we aimed to calculate the potential contribution of perioperative mortality to national mortality where these procedures are performed. We utilized reported surgical metrics with current rates for surgical volume (SV) and perioperative mortality (POMR), as well as World Bank/WHO mortality statistics, to predict the likely impact of surgical scale-up to recommended targets by 2030. We tested correlations between SV and POMR in countries from our region using Pearson's r statistic. Funnel plots were used to evaluate the dataset for outliers. Surgical scale up would result in perioperative mortality contributing on average to 3.3% of all national crude mortality. This prediction assumes POMR stays the same, which is challenging to predict. In our region countries that achieved the LCoGS target (n = 5) had a lower POMR than countries that did not (n = 8). Surgical volumes in the South Pacific region must increase to meet the LCoGS target. Postoperative mortality as a proportion of all mortality may increase with the surgical scale up, however, the overall number of premature deaths is expected to reduce with better access to timely and safe surgical care.

Universal Access to Surgical Care and Sustainable Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Case for Surgical Systems Research Comment on "Global Surgery - Informing National Strategies for Scaling Up Surgery in Sub-Saharan Africa".

National level experiences, lessons learnt from the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) era coupled with the academic evidence and proposals generated by the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCoGS) together with the economic arguments and recommendations from the World Bank Group’s "Essential Surgery" Disease Control Priorities (DCP3) publication, provided the impetus for political commitments to improve surgical care capacity at the primary level of the healthcare system in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) as part of their drive towards universal health coverage (UHC) in the form of World Health Organization (WHO) Resolution A68.15. This global commitment from governments must be followed up with development of a Global Action Plan and a global coordination mechanism supported by regional implementation frameworks on the part of the WHO in order for the organisation to better coordinate all stakeholders and sustain the technical support needed to develop and implement national surgical health policy in the form of National Surgical Obstetric and Anaesthesia Plans (NSOAPs). As expounded by Gajewski et al, data and research output on surgical care is essential to informing policy development and programme implementation. This area still remains a challenge in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) but it is envisaged that countries will include this key component in their ongoing national surgical healthcare policy development and programme implementation. In the Zambian case study, research in the area of Global Surgery investment-the surgical workforce scale-up is used to demonstrate the important role of implementation research in the development and implementation of the Zambian NSOAP as well as the need for international collaborations to this end. Scale-up reviews informed by implementation research to evaluate progress on the commitments contained in Resolution A68.15 and Decision A70.22 are essential to sustain the momentum and to help maintain focus on the gaps in all countries. There are opportunities for non-state actors especially local sub-regional academic institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and private sector to play a key role in surgical healthcare policy development and implementation research. Collection of and better information management of standardised surgical care indicators is essential for such research, for bi-annual WHO progress reporting and for demonstration of impact to justify and encourage further investments in surgical care.

The National Surgical, Obstetric, and Anesthesia Plan (NSOAP): Recognition and Definition of an Empirically Evolving Global Surgery Systems Science Comment on "Global Surgery - Informing National Strategies for Scaling Up Surgery in Sub-Saharan Africa".

In 2015, the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCoGS) working groups developed a National Surgical, Obstetric, and Anesthesia Plan (NSOAP) framework to guide national surgical system development globally predicated on six data points (indicators) which can assess surgical systems. Zambia as well as other subSaharan Africa (SSA) countries have forged ahead in designing and implementing interventions based on LCoGS indicators collected to inform NSOAP. Concurrently, the Zambian team and others have recognized the need for rigorous scientific inquiry to assess and iteratively improve upon the NSOAP process and outputs. Based on the Zambian experience, as well as that of ours in Colombia, we have identified "core principles" through convergent works which inform a scientific framework through which NSOAP can be evaluated. We propose that when contextualized, participatory action research (PAR) and dissemination and implementation science are methodologies upon which a robust framework can be developed to achieving objective and iterative NSOAP evaluation, and ultimately universal health coverage as envisioned by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Local Research Catalyzes National Surgical Planning Comment on "Global Surgery - Informing National Strategies for Scaling Up Surgery in Sub-Saharan Africa".

In 2015 the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCoGS) argued that surgical care is important to national health systems along with the economic viability of countries. Gajewski and colleagues outlined how the Commission’s blueprint has been implemented in sub-Saharan Africa, including two funded research projects that were integrated into national surgical plans. Here, we outline how the five processes proposed by Gajewski and colleagues are critical to integrate research, policy, and on-the-ground implementation. We also propose that, moving forward, the most pressing adjunct in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) may be a better characterization of rural surgical practices through rigorous research along with models that enable lessons to inform national policy.