Salient elements of the project

  • Significant buy-in from stake holders based on purposefully leaning into local culture:

      • ◦ One ethnic group —97% Khampa Tibetan
      ◦ One language, Khampa Tibetan
      ◦ Almost total illiteracy in the Tibetan language

      ◦ Poverty: about ¥1RMB/day income (15¢ US).

      ◦ Rural/agricultural based: nomadic yak herders, farmers, and monastics.

      ◦ No public transportation, no individual ownership of cars, trucks.
      ◦ Traditional. Majority nomadic yak herders and farmers. Equal number before 1959 were
         monastics.

      ◦ Spiritual. Only one religion — Tibetan Buddhism. Support monasteries, although there is a small
         yogic population.

      ◦ Low-status of women and girls.
      ◦ Free medical care appeals to culture based on generosity as its core value
  • Track record: clinic that has seen over 120,000 ultra-poor patients for free including meds over
         the last 10 years alone.

  • Over 50 volunteer physicians in the past 10 years have increased the capacity of the doctors at the
         clinic.

  • The clinic model

      • ◦ Doctors who are local highly trained Khampa Tibetans, who speak read and write the local
         language

      ◦ Ceiling-level KPIs that focuses on mother and child health

      ◦ Free treatment/free meds
      ◦ Low per-patient costs
      ◦ High patient satisfaction

      ◦ Cooperation with Public Health Service

  • Significant cooperation with the Chinese Government. There have been 5 partnership agreements
         since 1990:

      • ◦ Construction of the clinic (1992)
      ◦ KAP mass-data public health study (2005)
      ◦ Creation of Corps of 40 Community Health Workers (2006)
      ◦ Post Earthquake Partnership to export Surmang Model of Rural Health as a Sustainable
         Prototype. (2010)
      ◦ Rural Health Festival (2011)