We are delighted to welcome Dr Michelle White, Great Ormond Street Hospital, London to deliver this first seminar in the series.
Dr White is a consultant anaesthetist and has just completed a PhD in implementation science applied in the context of several sub-Saharan African countries.
Implementation science in a global health context: seminar abstract
Two-thirds of the world’s population lack access to safe, affordable surgical care. In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) the quality of surgical care is poor and surgical outcomes are worse when compared to high-income countries (HICs). While numerous affordable, life-saving quality improvement (QI) interventions do exist, hardly any of them are widely utilised in LMICs. Furthermore, evidence of how to successfully implement these advances at the national level is lacking both in HICs and LMICs. Implementation science, therefore, has a crucial role to play in improving the scale up of QI interventions globally and thereby improving the quality and safety of surgical care, especially in LMICs. This webinar discusses the Dr Michelle White's experience of using various implementation science approaches to implementing a QI intervention (the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist) at the national level in three sub-Saharan African countries and suggests future directions for implementation science in the global surgical context.