Our Vision

We invest in local paediatric surgeons, giving them the tools to deliver safe surgery for their nation’s children. Our initial data suggests that a dedicated paediatric operating room can deliver an average of 50 surgical procedures per month. The estimate on our website is based on these early findings and increases each day based on the projected capacity that has been created by our installations to date. Though this figure is updated each month, it may not reflect the exact number of operations actually delivered.

To more precisely understand the impact and reach of our work, KidsOR has partnered with Yale University to lead an independent global research project investigating key factors in clinical output alongside exploring the social, geographic, and economic factors influencing access to safe surgery for children. Launched in early 2019, this will grow to become the largest ever study of the impact of surgical systems intervention for children to date. For further information on research and impact at KidsOR, please contact hailey@kidsor.org

To quantify the overall burden of disease in different populations across the globe, it is standard to use a measure called the disability-adjusted life years (DALY). This measurement is equivalent to the sum of potential life lost due to premature mortality and the years of productive life lost to disability. By using DALYs, we can compare the impact of diseases that cause premature death and little disability with diseases that do not cause death but do cause disability. [1]

In a country with a life expectancy of 66, when a two-year old girl has an operation to treat a congenital fistula that has left her incontinent, it is considered that 64 years of disability have been averted. In a pilot study of our work in Uganda, it was found that a single operating room dedicated to children’s surgery could avert to 6,447 years of disability for each year of activity. [2]

[1] World Health Organisation. Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). Global Health Observatory (GHO) Data. Available at: https://www.who.int/gho/mortality_burden_disease/daly_rates/text/en/.

[2] Yap A, Muzira A, Cheung M, et al. A cost-effectiveness analysis of a pediatric operating room in Uganda. Surgery 2018: 164:953-959.