Our Guiding Philosophy

We aim to take a comprehensive, community-based approach to rapidly and effectively expanding health services. The following basic principles guide our practical, on-the-ground approach to clinical and public health practice:

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

Every preventable death is our shared responsibility. A majority of deaths in resource-poor settings are avoidable and represent a failure of the health care system. Each death is a reason to reassess our health care system, to prevent the next one. Our entire health team will account for each death in the community, and will investigate the medical and social causes of mortality.

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 health services. Engaging local governance structures and developing transparent and responsive management systems can help to achieve this mission.

In resource-poor settings, 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 ICTs in one of the world’s most remote locations, but do it with a fundamental focus on social justice. If ICTs are going to achieve their potential in health and democracy, illiterate individuals, women, and lower castes in particular must be a priority.

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

We take donors’ generosity very seriously. We will avoid excess expenditures and minimize overhead in Kathmandu and the United States not going directly into clinical and public health services in Achham.

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.

Integrated primary care systems fight epidemic disease more effectively than vertical, top-down approaches. 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 these communities.