Mission and Principles
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Mission
To develop, implement and study evidence-based, economically feasible, and culturally appropriate Guidelines for International Breast Health and Cancer Control for low- and middle-income countries (LMCs) to improve breast health outcomes and access to breast cancer screening, detection and treatment for women.
Program
Co-sponsored by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the BHGI is a global health alliance and international network of government agencies, healthcare organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), for-profit and non-profit organizations, doctors, scientists, policy makers and advocates devoted to addressing the needs of medically underserved women. Begun in 2002, BHGI is an outcome oriented program that aims to develop and apply guidelines for "best practices with limited resources" adapted to the unique requirements in LMCs to improve early detection, diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer within existing health care systems.
Principles of BHGI Guidelines
- Economically disadvantaged countries have differing financial needs, resource limitations, social constraints and competing illness profiles that frame how national breast health care programs should be implemented.
- Evidence-based guidelines from wealthy countries define optimal goals for resource-constrained countries, although these countries commonly lack the fundamental infrastructure that is required for direct implementation.
- Health care systems cannot be transformed at once.
- Improvements in early detection, diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer require organized, sequentially implemented steps to achieve improved outcome.
- The development of international evidence-based breast health care guidelines oriented to LMCs are a crucial step toward improving breast health care and cancer treatment in these countries.
- It is possible to define evidence-based "best practices with limited resources" for breast healthcare for use in countries where access to healthcare is challenged, breast cancer awareness is limited and cultural barriers need to be overcome.
- GUIDELINES for economically disadvantaged countries may require that alternate strategies for care to those adopted in wealthy countries to allow sequential steps in improvement provided that those alternate strategies are not defining a "lowered" standard of care for that country.
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