Philosophy

We strive towards a single standard of care for all clients.
We believe fundamentally in equity–that all individuals have a right to excellent, not “basic,” or “minimum” standard of medical care.

Every preventable death is our shared responsibility.
A majority of deaths in resource-denied settings are avoidable and represent a failure of the health care system. Human suffering is a reason to reassess our health care system, and to prevent further suffering. Our entire health team is accountable for the standard of medical care we provide, and investigates the medical and social causes of mortality in the communities we serve.

An accountable health system depends upon innovative management structures and collaboration with local government.
Our overall goal is to strengthen local capacity to develop effective, accountable public health services. Engaging local governance structures and developing transparent and responsive management systems can help to achieve this mission.

In resource-denied settings, point-of-care users fees often present an insurmountable barrier to health care access and serve to perpetuate inequalities in health.
User fees deter clients from seeking early treatment and utilizing essential preventive services. Furthermore, they drive poor clients into debt, creating spirals of poverty and disease. We seek to develop innovative, sustainable community-based financing mechanisms that eliminate user fees.

Equitable expansion of information and communication technologies can greatly facilitate the roll-out of effective, democratic, and geographically comprehensive health services.
We aim not only to expand information technology in one of the world’s most remote locations, but do so with a fundamental focus on social justice. If technology can help to improve health and democracy, then illiterate individuals, women, and lower castes must be prioritized in their ability to access and make use of such technology.

A team-based approach consisting of community health workers, nurses, physicians, and nurse midwives is the most effective form of health services provision.
Community health workers will be on the front-lines, engaging communities, detecting disease, and providing care. At the same time, the expertise that physicians, nurses, and nurse midwives bring is irreplaceable.

Health promotion and education are critical, but significantly less effective without medical resources.
Evidence exists to support health promotion and educational activities, but they must go hand-in-hand with clinical and public health services. Informing people about diseases, without providing treatment, is neither effective nor–in our opinion–ethical.

Cost-effective use of scarce funds requires innovation, insight, and transparency.
We avoid excess expenditures and minimize overhead in both the U.S. and Nepal.
We make publicly available our line-by-line budgetary expenditures through our wiki.

Epidemiological surveillance and outcomes monitoring drives and refines our work.
To assess the impact of our interventions, we will collect data of high quality—and adapt our programs based on the results. All of our data will be transparently available to the public.

We must integrate vertical, top-down approaches into primary care systems for comprehensive prevention and care.
Single-disease-focused interventions are limited in the absence of a functioning primary care system. Even as we tackle acute health needs and address the emergencies posed by AIDS, TB and maternal and infant mortality, we aim to develop a strong health system built on a primary care base. Only this kind of model can meet the complex, changing needs of resource-denied communities.