15x15 was as campaign to make 2015 the ‘Year of Surgery’ by advocating for 15 essential interventions that can take care of the basic surgical needs of a community.   

15x15 is the advocacy campaign for "The Right to Heal" 

ICES, the International Collaboration for Essential Surgery, is the fiscal agent for 15x15. 

15x15’s overarching goal is to ensure that the need for Essential Surgery is formally recognized at the national and international level as a primary care component by 2015 and that a strategic plan post-2015 is in place.

Our three key strategies for making this happen are:

         1) Influencing policymakers to prioritize essential surgeries as public health focal areas worldwide.

         2) Facilitating readiness to commence surgical training in select countries by 2015.

         3) Collecting and disseminating data and analysis that show the effects of practice and policy changes.

 POLICY

15x15 seeks action from the following entities to increase access to Essential Surgery

“We encourage WHO and UN member states, governments, and civil society to recognize the need to provide people everywhere with access to 15 of the most basic and affordable surgical services as a public health strategy to save lives and prevent permanent disability or life-threatening complications. These 15 essential surgeries should be fully integrated into an existing health system and should be made accessible to populations and communities with the highest burden of disease in poorly resourced areas of the world. Such strategy is one of integration with and strengthening of existing health infrastructure and systems."

PRACTICE

By 2015:

If our efforts are successful, select countries will be ready to implement provider-training pilots for 15 Essential Surgeries.

Each will also commence a formal national needs assessment.

Referral systems will be assessed.

By 2030:

Training programs for Tier One interventions will be continued with monitoring and evaluation for improved efficiency.

We can move forward with pilots of Tier Two surgical interventions, which are more complicated surgical interventions but are still essential. Countries’ strengthened health systems will be better prepared to take on unanticipated increases in load like natural disasters, wars, or population booms.

DATA / INFORMATION

• Create a data dashboard that can be accessed by policy makers, district level health care providers and researchers to share data on best practices for assessment, training, implementation of essential surgical practices