Building better outcomes: A grounded theory approach to understanding creation and management of surgical data systems in Ethiopia

Surgical outcomes in low- and middle-income countries are significantly worse than in their high-income country counter parts. Registries are an important tool in quality improvement as they facilitate collection and analysis of comprehensive patient data to be used for benchmarking outcomes. Despite the known efficacy of such registries, they are sparse in low- and middle-income countries. Ethiopia, however has had success implementing perioperative data collection systems at a national as well as local level. This qualitative study seeks to understand the experience of creating and managing such registries in the low-income setting from the perspective of individuals who work in this space.