Key Differentiators
Operation Smile is distinguished by excellence. We work around the world, in some of the most remote places, to ensure all children born with cleft lip or cleft palate have the opportunity to be healed. We apply global standards of safety and hygiene to all of our procedures and post-op care to ensure that our patients and their families receive the highest level of care, cleanliness, respect and dignity.
These standards are leading the world into a new frontier of safe, effective surgical care that is available anywhere it is needed.
Six ways you know it's Operation Smile
We reach the unreachable
Our medical programs mobilize medical professionals from all over the world to treat children with facial deformities. We bring together the latest, most effective practices and training to deliver safe surgery to remote places where it is not available, often in the developing world. The impact of our work is lasting. We leave behind a legacy of trained medical staff, surgical equipment and professional partnerships that work year-round to ensure more children are healed and more lives are changed. Our teams have provided care across over 300 sites around the world.
We work from the heart
Operation Smile surgeries are conducted by our credentialed medical volunteer base of thousands of surgeons, anesthesiologists, dentists, nurses and other professionals. These dedicated individuals donate time and talent throughout the world, giving children a new chance at life. Our volunteers are the drive, the spirit and the reason we've been able to provide more than 2 million patient evaluations and over 200,000 free surgeries at no cost to our patients and their families.
We apply Global Standards of Care
We bring the highest quality of care to every child, every time. We are the only cleft organization supporting the World Health Organization's "Safe Surgery Saves Lives" initiative. Our Global Standards of Care is our commitment to ensuring that every patient cared for by Operation Smile will benefit from the same sophisticated equipment, procedures and highly trained, credentialed medical professionals, no matter where they receive treatment.
We build self-sufficiency worldwide
The global demand for cleft repair surgery is staggering and can only be met if we build a self-sustaining solution. Education, training, medical equipment, best surgical practices and an expanding network of Operation Smile Care Centers are some of our highest priorities. With a presence in over 60 countries, more than half of our medical missions originate in-country and follow the proven Operation Smile model — allowing us to deliver essential high-quality care to more and more children each year.
We lead the way
Raising awareness and fighting to end the occurrence of cleft conditions are major initiatives. Our student leadership programs, network of global foundations, and research and advocacy efforts in the world health community are making significant strides in these initiatives. We're also leading the way for nonprofits in the Web 2.0 world with our online community for students to interact with each other, learn more about childhood facial deformities and understand how they are empowered to make a difference. In engaging students from kindergarten all the way to college, we aim to build future leaders and humanitarians who will mobilize to help heal more smiles worldwide.
We continually educate and train
Worldwide education is one of the cornerstones of who we are. We are steadfast in our commitment to help build local expertise through intensive and ongoing training and sharing of best practices on a global level. Working through a collaboration of volunteers, business leaders, universities and governments, our goal is to create an expanding network of highly trained local medical volunteers that will provide the best care possible to the children we help.
