Surgical multicenter collaborative studies: ¿What happen in Latin America?

Background: GlobalSurg is an international group of researchers whose purpose is to conduct and disseminate robust collaborative, international and multicenter studies.

Objective: To expose the necessary strategies and the barriers crossed in conducting massive multicenter studies in surgery.

Method: During the second semester of 2020, the study Surg-Week Prospective International Cohort Study was carried out. Surg-Week has been the largest international study in the field of surgery to date, with 141,582 patients included. A total of 4975 mini-teams, of between 1 and 5 members, collected data from 116 countries on all continents.

Results: The creation of an official website for the study, reports with relevant information via email or groups via WhatsApp, formation of a Dissemination Committee of the protocol, delivery of webinars on recent team publications, appointment of leaders at the national and international level, and outreach through partnerships, were the strategies used for the development of the research. However, the barriers turned out to involve different aspects.

Conclusions: Collaborative work allows establishing networks between different professionals with the goal of improving the quality of management, health policies and care of our patients in a timely manner of constant change.