Global Smile Foundation

Effective cleft care exists right now. The challenge is providing access to patient care and provider training in under-resourced areas of the world. GSF has worked through a diagonal model for universal cleft care access that integrates patient care and provider education to build capacity at our program sites.

Our goals are to:

1. Conduct 6-8 annual outreach programs in underserved areas of the world.
*Meet patient needs by providing high quality cleft care.
*Establish a presence for ongoing capacity building.

2. Educate providers to deliver the same level of team-based, high quality cleft care as the leading programs in United States.
*Deliver hands-on training for healthcare professionals at our program sites.
*Facilitate an international comprehensive cleft care workshop, now in its 6th year.

3. Empower long-term sustainability by developing program sites into year-round cleft centers.
*Develop local cleft teams at program sites
*Guide and support local partners to ensure advanced cleft care for local populace
*Utilize Augmented Reality to remote proctor cleft repair surgeries.

1. Providing Integrated & Individualized Care
The best patient outcomes for cleft care come from an integrated approach to care that brings together all of the associated specialties: surgery, dentistry, orthodontics, pediatrics, speech pathology, psychology, nursing, and anesthesiology. GSF teams include experienced providers from each of these disciplines, who work together to improve the lives of their patients. Each patient has specific needs and our teams are designed to deliver individualized treatment plans.

2. Providing a Continuity of Care over Time
Children born with cleft require care throughout their childhoods as they grow physically, cognitively, and emotionally. By returning to each mission location annually, often with many of the same volunteers, GSF is able to give personal and consistent support to each patient and family.

3. Sustainable Capacity Building
By providing education and training during annual programs, GSF is able to share knowledge with onsite healthcare providers and thereby enhance the quality of care for the surrounding communities. Ultimately, our goal is to establish a year-round Cleft Center at each location to continue and expand the care provided by GSF volunteers.

4. Global Reach
In 2018, GSF launched an international workshop to reach a wider, global audience. The Comprehensive Cleft Care Workshop (CCCW) brings together the leaders in the cleft and craniofacial fields to share skills and knowledge with a new generation of providers.

Empowering cleft care providers through education efforts results in better patient care and outcomes on a scale that surpasses what any individual NGO can accomplish alone. Even training one cleft care provider has far-reaching impact. Assuming that one provider can treat 200 patients in a year, on average, and that a typical provider career spans 20 years, then training one provider will benefit 4,000 patients.

5. Unity & Collaboration
We believe in working collaboratively with other organizations in the cleft and craniofacial fields. By harnessing our collective energy, we can improve the efficiency and outreach cleft care as well as the outcomes for patients.

GSF is a founding member of the World Cleft Coalition (WCC) and actively contributes to the creation of worldwide standards for patient care. In addition, other NGOs that provide cleft care regularly attend and sponsor the CCCW.

GSF’s commitment for holistic and integrated cleft care from birth to adulthood, coupled with quality outcomes and patients’ trust in the care being delivered throughout the decades, have played a major role in the steadily increasing demand for our humanitarian work globally.

We have been recognized for our:
• Best-quality patient outcomes
• Commitment to excellence and safety
• Consistent and lasting partnerships at program sites
• Integrated model for patient care and provider education

Global Smile Foundation (GSF) recently celebrated 15 years as an NGO and 36 years of humanitarian cleft services for our founding Board members. We run 4 well-established outreach sites, an annual international cleft workshop, a cleft center in Ecuador, and a research team that regularly publishes in peer-reviewed journals.

GSF recently published an article showing our impact on the wellbeing & livelihood of our patients in the Journal of Craniofacial Surgery. These findings are summarized in Global Smile Foundation’s Cleft Surgical Outreach Program: Clinical and Economic Impact During the Past 14 Years (Younan et al., 2023). The author team analyzed the DALY and associated economic gain from primary cleft lip/palate surgeries provided by GSF since 2009. The conclusions are an impressive testament to the power of cleft care.

Primary cleft surgeries provided by GSF have averted 15,310 DALY for patients and improved their quality of life. We estimate that these surgeries empowered our patients with an economic gain of $78.3 million-$152.9 million, or $48,021-$93,750 per patient.

In 2022, we published Interdisciplinary Cleft Care: Global Perspectives, a textbook that draws from the rich national and international relationships between Global Smile Foundation and world experts in cleft care to provide comprehensive, clear, and user-friendly content for all cleft care professionals. This text is designed to be an inclusive resource that addresses the educational needs of all cleft care providers, from novice learners looking to develop their area’s first multidisciplinary cleft team to seasoned specialists looking to improve their outcomes.

In 2008, GSF ran 4 10-day outreach programs. This year GSF will spend more than 10 weeks on the ground at our program sites with larger teams caring for new and long-term patients. In addition, given the significant number of patients we have treated over the past two decades, it is clear that we will need to increase our capacity to provide secondary surgeries and orthodontic care.

GSF has become the largest cleft care provider in Ecuador and Lebanon, caring for 40% of patients in each country. We run a year-round cleft center in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

We established an annual educational workshop in 2018 to enhance the training of cleft providers in underserved regions. Now in the 6th year, the workshop has become internationally acclaimed for the quality of the world-renowned speakers and the extensive and integrated lecture series coupled with hands-on training via interactive simulation sessions. To date, more than 1,300 attendees have participated.

In 2019, GSF began a 2-year postdoctoral research fellowship that offers a unique opportunity to participate in a variety of research projects, all of which are conducive to obtaining peer-reviewed publications and presentations at national and international meetings. The fellows prepare for, and participate in, numerous outreach programs during the two-year fellowship that further their experience in global health. Fellowships alumni have matched to residency programs in the United States including at Tufts Medical Center, Penn State, the Medical College of Georgia, and Hackensack Meridian Palisades Medical Center.