Abstract for: Alternative Levers for Orthopaedic Surgery Capacity Building in Low and Middle-Income

In this study, we focus on capacity building for orthopaedic surgery in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Surgical capacity necessitates the presence of a surgical workforce and adequate hospital infrastructure (e.g. operating rooms and equipment). Orthopaedic surgery capacity in LMICs is often hindered by another barrier- a lack of affordable orthopaedic implants. We are in the process of developing a qualitative system dynamics model to explore levers for building orthopaedic surgical capacity in LMICs. To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to highlight the complex role of implant availability. Our model attempts to show the coupling of the surgical skill set to the implant supply, as well as other factors that affect orthopaedic surgical capacity. We are modeling the complexities of the system to demonstrate to stakeholders at which point in the system their investments could leverage a virtuous reinforcing loop. The ultimate goal of our research agenda involves building a simulation model and using it to test the effectiveness of different policies and investments to build surgical capacity in LMICs.