New Publication: Towards High-Quality Perioperative Care: A Global Perspective
Santhirapala V, Peden CJ, Meara JG, Biccard BM, Gelb AW, Johnson WD Lipnick MS, Makasa EM, Martin J, Maswime S, Mellin-Olsen J, McClain CD. Anaesthesia. Towards High-Quality Perioperative Care: A Global Perspective. 2020 Jan;75 Suppl 1:e18-e27. doi: 10.1111/anae.14921.
Article 25 of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrines the right to health and well-being for every individual. However, universal access to high-quality healthcare remains the purview of a handful of wealthy nations. This is no more apparent than in peri-operative care, where an estimated five billion individuals lack access to safe, affordable and timely surgical care.
Delivery of surgery and anaesthesia in low-resource environments presents unique challenges that, when unaddressed, result in limited access to low-quality care. Current perioperative research and clinical guidance often fail to acknowledge these system-level deficits and therefore have limited applicability in low-resource settings.
In this manuscript, the authors priority-set the need for equitable access to high quality peri-operative care and analyse the system-level contributors to excess peri operative mortality rates, a key marker of quality of care. To provide examples of how research and investment may close the equity gap, a modified Delphi method was adopted to curate and appraise interventions which may, with subsequent research and evaluation, begin to address the barriers to high-quality peri-operative care in low- and middle-income countries.
© 2020 Association of Anaesthetists.
