Quality improvement in low resource settings: an Ethiopian experience.

Improving surgical and anaesthetic mortality in the developing world is a global health priority. Quality improvement processes have a role to play in addressing this need and are applicable to low-resource settings despite difficulties in their implementation. International initiatives to reduce perioperative mortality can be focussed to support interventions at the level of individual departments, but this requires integration with existing local systems and an understanding of the specific needs of the institutions concerned. There is a small but growing evidence base for quality improvement in low resource settings, but this needs to be locally accessible to allow self-sustaining evidence-based quality improvement