• Vicknes Waran, Ramasamy Thillainathan, Ravindran Karuppiah, and John D Pickard.
• Division of Neurosurgery, Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Electronic address: cmvwaran@gmail.com.
• World Neurosurg. 2022 Jan 1; 157: 135-142.

BackgroundThe provision of equitable and affordable health care has become increasingly challenging as advanced technology is introduced, particularly in developing countries. We explored the hypothesis that focused, small-scale mini-public-private partnerships have a potential role in providing equitable and affordable access to advanced technology for the benefit of all patients in developing nations, particularly middle-income countries.MethodsA clinician-led financial plan was developed at the University of Malaya to create the Centre for Image Guidance and Minimally Invasive Therapy (CIGMIT) to provide an integrated platform for high-end care for Malaysian patients of all ages, both public and private, requiring complex neurosurgical and spinal procedures and stereotactic and intensity-modulated radiotherapy. The challenges faced during development of the plan were documented together with an audit of patient throughput and analyses of financial risk and return.ResultsCIGMIT opened in 2015. Patient throughput, both public and private, progressively increased in all facilities. In 2015-2019, 37,724 patients used the Centre's facilities. CIGMIT has become progressively more profitable for the University of Malaya, the public and private hospitals, and the investor. CIGMIT has weathered the challenges posed by coronavirus disease 19.ConclusionsFocused, small-scale mini-public-private partnerships have a potential role in providing advanced technology for the benefit of patients in developing nations, particularly middle-income countries, subject to an approach that balances equity of access between public and private health care systems with fair reward.Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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