title: An opportunity for diagonal development in global surgery: cleft lip and palate care in resource-limited settings.
abstract: Global cleft surgery missions have provided much-needed care to millions of poor patients worldwide. Still, surgical capacity in low- and middle-income countries is generally inadequate. Through surgical missions, global cleft care has largely ascribed to a vertical model of healthcare delivery, which is disease specific, and tends to deliver services parallel to, but not necessarily within, the local healthcare system. The vertical model has been used to address infectious diseases as well as humanitarian emergencies. By contrast, a horizontal model for healthcare delivery tends to focus on long-term investments in public health infrastructure and human capital and has less often been implemented by humanitarian groups for a variety of reasons. As surgical care is an integral component of basic healthcare, the plastic surgery community must challenge itself to address the burden of specific disease entities, such as cleft lip and palate, in a way that sustainably expands and enriches global surgical care as a whole. In this paper, we describe a diagonal care delivery model, whereby cleft missions can enrich surgical capacity through integration into sustainable, local care delivery systems. Furthermore, we examine the applications of diagonal development to cleft care specifically and global surgical care more broadly.
authors: Program in Global Surgery and Social Change, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA ; Department of Plastic and Oral Surgery, Boston Children's Hospital, 300 Longwood Avenue, Enders 1, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
authors: Pratik B
authors: PB
authors: Patel
authors: Marguerite
authors: M
authors: Hoyler
authors: Rebecca
authors: R
authors: Maine
authors: Christopher D
authors: CD
authors: Hughes
authors: Lars
authors: L
authors: Hagander
authors: John G
authors: JG
authors: Meara