Table 1.

Summary of results (see text for further details)

Domain	Platform
	Temporary, short-term	Temporary, self-contained	Surgical specialty hospital
Effectiveness	Poor results for complex procedures; effective for simple procedures	Potentially equivalent to developed-world outcomes	Equivalent to developed-world outcomes
Cost-effectiveness	Cost-effective if serving as the only platform for surgery; unlikely cost-effective otherwise	No data	Most cost-effective of the competing choices
Sustainability	Unlikely sustainable; may have a detrimental impact on health-seeking behaviour	No data	Platform suitable for sustainability
Training	Effective for training of developed-world surgeons. Little data on training of LMIC surgeons	Platform available for training	Definite role for training of LMIC surgeons

Sparse data on this platform limit the certainty of these conclusions