Discovering Medical Tourism

Recently I visited a string of interesting spa in South East Asia:

• Tria integrative Wellness,
• Amezcua Wellness Centre, 
• San Carlos.

These spa are classified under the medical spa category. The concept of a medical spa consists in linking pampering to health benefits: you go to a medical spa to feel better under a precise Medical protocol. If you figure that a medical spa is a massage table with an electrocardiograph you re not very far. A medical spa will go beyond the word wellness and investigate your health conditions on the short term (medical analysis) and on the long term (preventive care), connecting a spa treatment to diet counselling and stress management.

In fact according to the preventive care theory, nutrition influences the health of your body and keeping tabs with it is a good way to avoid diseases in the long term (this theory still lacks precise documentation but is based on the belied that the synthetisation of amino acids brought by daily food intake affects the creation of neuro transmitters hence the perception of pain and mood).

Let’s take a look at the spa menus proposed by these different medical spa to better understand what it’s all about!

 First, when I arrived at TRIA (Bangkok) I was surprised because the taxi drove me to the Piyavate hospital. Then instead of turning right we took a small road alongside the massive hospital to discover a brand new faciity behind with golf cars and mercedes in the parking lot. Then inside it’s a real treat: wooden atmosphere, with top notch design. The medispa is organised in threee levels (four to come): the first one is hosting a small spa for men and for women, on the second floor you’ll find treatment rooms that are full of medical equipement and at the center a spa cuisine restaurant where you will be served vegetarian food accroding to your diet assesment. Then the second floor is composed by a pool and 4 isolated treatment pavillon

Getting an idea of TRIA: the spa Pavillon (3rd floor) + the food corner (2nd floor)

I really love their approach as it mainly focus on understanding how an alternative medicine can benefit to someone: they use reiki for fatigue, anxiety, hydrotherapy for arthritis, yoga for balance and market that under simple names such as sitting confortably for yoga, go the distance for fitness assesment. A really complete preventive care program in a spa envirronment. Hence a stay at Piyavate can be immediately followed by an experienmce at TRIA, a decisive competitive advantage that is increasingly considered by Asian hospital groups. TRIA did their soft opening last October, I m really impatient to see their operation up and running!

 Amezcua (Manilla, Philippines) has put  up a team of specialists to operate on three distinct fields: alternative medicine (acupuncture, healing touch…), recovery after surgery and aesthetics surgery. The program has an interesting twist as it converts alternative medicine treatments in preventive care screenings (for instance Meridian Stress Assessment (MSA) derived from traditional Chinese medicine that consists in measuring electrical energy throughout acupoints and meridians to estimate one’s level of Qi or the Korean Bu-Hang (where cups are placed in one’s back to see if an organ is reacting abnormally)). They also use innovative alternative medicine processes recently developped such as ozonotherapy (inhalation of pure oxygen to reinvigorate the tissues). As for TRIA it is a rather new concept, and there are eyeing to develop a facility in Koh Samui in the months to come.

 San Carlos, founded in 1993, is well known for its expertise in the field of weight control, insomnia treatment and stress management. Techniques used at St Carlos are mixing traditional Thai medicine and recent western technology. St Carlos both provides general medical care and check-ups, and wellness programs (slimming, rejuvenating, body cleansing), as well as cosmetic surgery.

Spa packages mix laser acupuncture, Ayurveda and herbal medicine… The St. Carlos Weight Loss treatment consists of a mixture of Asian herbs and pharmaceutical components combined to effectively cleanse the body and burn off unwanted fat. First, patients loose weight, then there is a time for weight stabilization

After their treatment, patients are provided with a complete individual health plan. Considering the background of the client’s health problems, spa doctors educate the clients on individual health management, including healthy dietary intake and exercise programs. St Carlos Medical centre also offers a wide range of facial care products, as well as hair treatment and food supplements, under their own brand name, St Carlos.

All in all three different approach:

• TRIA is the future of spa integration to hospital
• Amezcua is all about preventive care through alternative medicine
• San Carlos i s  a medical leader in alternative medicine

Hence if you ask me who is Medhi Spa I ll answer: “he’s the new kid on the block“

Recently I received two mails from European Entrepreneurs (one Deutch, one English) that are willing to open a medical tourism agency that were both wildly complaining about the lack of support of Asian Hospitals. What they were pointing out was the fact that hospitals were not willing to invest in their operations while these medical tourism facilitators were “working in the best interest of the hospitals”. To be honest, I find this idea totally exaggerated: a medical tourism agency is always hedging surgeries between a pool of more than 10 hospitals. Given the small volumes yielded, what do these medical tourism agency provide: 30 customers per hospital a year? Seriously, why should an hospital invest in your start up and not in another one with a real value proposition?

Tan Tok Seng to NUH: Let’s work together baby! You take the arms, I take the legs

Yet, even though these claims are too much, there is one point to put forward: hospitals could act as a regulating power for these medical tourism agencies. In fact, the industry is lacking standardization: hospitals are very different from each other and the incoming process always vary from a medical group to another resulting into an incompatibility of medical records system, filing system, reporting system…  plus, medical tourism agencies are often individuals that advice people to go to a certain hospital and take a commission for all the ground work. Yet, what about insurances? what about medical records transfer?

The critical investments that hospitals need to do is a common R&D program to ease up international patient management. Let s take Asian Hospitals: they will gain momentum (against Eastern Europe or South America) by creating a common process (as medical tourism operators will find it easier to work with them). Intercompatibility between hospitals is even more important in case of complications: for instance, one friend of mine got a motorbike accident while visiting Singapore last week (… poor guy, his knee is in shambles …).

He was transfered to Alexandra Hospital, a good but not world class hospital in Singapore where a first operation was performed. An Arthroscopy showed that the operation will be more complicated hence he was sent to Singapore’s best orthopedic clinic in Singapore @ Mount Elizabeth Hospital (a Parkway group hospital). These two hospitals are not belonging to the same group of hospital… This resulted in a messy outpatient management (my friend was still considered a patient of Alexandra Hospital two days after leaving) and the need to do again some examinations as Alexandra hospital was unable to provide the records in due time. A complication during an orthopedic surgery can always happen requiring the help of the adequate team of specialists but not necessarily belonging to the same hospital. If Alexandra and Mount Elizabeth had a common system for their international patient, my firend would not have gone through painful drills and tests for a second time in a week.

In an ideal world, hospitals in a specific place would create an association whereby each hospital will hold a speciality for international patients (hospital X for plastic surgery, Hospital Y for spinal cord surgery and hand surgery…) so that hospitals can assemble the best team of specialists in the aera and gain sizable know how while reaching important volumes. Let’s take Singapore: Mount Elizabeth could specialize in orthopedic surgery while Raffles Hospital could specialize in Cardiology, leading to only one interface and common marketing effort to attract international patients. The Singaporian Board of Tourism (STB) is already gearing towards this direction by creating its medical travel departement, yet this is a governement initiative more than an industrial association. The Public System is in fact working under two groups, but these groups are put at odds (competition should create better process) and are diconnected with Private Hospitals.

There are evident issues to this system (revenue sharing model? volume per speciality? profitability per operation?) … Readers what are your thoughts?

Today, as always, I m ready for a rant. Why? Because I don t get certain points in medical tourism, for instance the notion of medical care offering. Two events happened in the last few days:

Hi! I am a medical tourism product on a website: I am slightly yellow and red, can you please find me?

+ a medical tourism entrepreneur stated that offering to the public all kind of cancer, orthopedic and cardiac treatments and surgeries for medical outsourcing was completely logical because of the long tail theory. This is absolutely nonsense for many obvious reasons:

a. not all procedures are fitting to a medical tourism model that implies relatively short stays (people don’t want to die in India far from everyone from what I know) and do not pose any problems when considerong air travel (as people know air transportation because of a difference in air pressure can cause Phlebitis as well as bruises after a heart or spine surgery for instance).

b. people need guidance and no clear cut specialisations mean no real medical ability in the eyes of many medical tourists that I have interviewed. What is the point in bringing up a catalogue with 349 references when I know that bearely 20 of the references will represent 80% of my business (the famed Pareto law). People can argue that internet advantage is to propose anything but I will counter argue that people needs first to undrestand how things are working. The more products one offers the less he is able to put up clear packages and to market them efficiently. I don t think that a list of 235 oncologic treatments with no content associated on a webpage is efficient.

The guy did not agree with me. Yet from what I have learned he only had 3 clients in 2007… Perhaps because his product mix is aweful?

+ Talking about product mix here is my second example. While travelling in Asia I came to discuss many times about Planet Hospital that thanks to its innovative products is making a lot of noise and refered as the market leader by big media outlets. However, all the interviewed hospital marketing manager had the same conclusion: Planet Hospital represented nothing for them. Namely Planet Hospital, despite its reputation, had peanuts bargaining power. How come? planet Hospital is proposing an extremly wide range of hospital and is playing a dumb game as people can opt for the hospital they prefer. Hospitals marketing managers made the following criticisms to Planet Hospital:

a. a too large pool of hospitals naturally scattered volumes and pushed people to be as much of a low cost seeker as they can. IN fact, many of planet hospital’s customers are just looking for bargains and hence are mre concerned by economic rationale than success rate and service quality

b. Planet hospital is not a marketing partner as they do not focus enough on the upsides of each hospitals and hasn’t been able to come up with a clear ranking of hospitals according to specialties. On the company’s website all hospitals seem to be inter exchangeable.

All in all, both example show that medical tourism suffers from one major problem: no marketing mind tried to put up an interesting product ix, it is still too much opportunistic and one sided. Hospitals seem to be despised by much actors and there is no clear cut marketing contribution between medical agencies and hospitals. We can even call this a rift.

The Web 2.0 has been on the back burner for quite a while now. Just quoting the 2.0 stuff is enough to see people advocating a new golden era. However, many econmists and web specialists have identified several hindrances to the web 2.0: the revenue model has not evolved, the bigs only can survive, the information is not homogenous, yet it is a great looking idea. Wikipedia among others is a great example of the potential success of such a trend.

Medtrotter: a new toddler in the Web 2.0 world

Medtrotter decided to be the first entrant in the Web 2.0 for medical tourism. The company has created a portal where people can give their opinion on a given surgeon or a given location. Unfortunately, we can hardly access to any data and it seems that this system is not efficient. In fact, there are little elements that push anyone to fill these questionnaires that  however are not long but is still demanding efforts. Nevertheless, there is a genuine community sustaining the system, namely people experiencing medical travel and that are willing to share their experience. Yet, is the simple assesment of a doctor a good tool to pass a judgement on medical tourism. This supposes that the concept itself is accepted, that medical tourism is well understood by everyone and that there is no need to make a clear statement on the side effects of the system (better service, better facilities…). Is grading a doctor better than reading a testimonial where a doctor and an hospital are involved?

I genuinely feel that this concept comes at a too early stage of medical tourism and testimonials are still a better tool than global benchmarking. Even though the idea is relevant, I don’t feel that this is people wan to say and want to read for the time being. Web 2.0 in medical tourism should better be developped for close knitting qualified testimonials…

Michel Rocard is quite an affluent man in the history of France. Looking at his curriculum he was the former Prime Minister of France for three years (88 to 91) before being sacked because of his bickering rivalry with francois Mitterand. Recently he became quite popular with his very phoney interviews during which he appeared as a sincere man  full of humor and nuances. In a word, he is someone that stands high in the French opinion.

BEFORE                                           AFTER

Yet, recently, while being on a tour in India for the IFUNA, Michel Rocard experienced many problems while trying to walk and he was sent to emergencies on the 30th of June in Calcutta while barely being able to speak. From what it seems, Michel Rocard had a major hematoma in the brain and a surgery was quickly performed by Dr. G. K. Prusty.

Michel Rocard now comments: ” the surgery performed on me was quite serious (…) and could have crippled me”, but it was undertaken under excellent conditions (…), I believe there will be no side effects, it is formidable“.

Form Wikipedia: “Public relations (PR) is the managing of outside communication of an organization or business to create and maintain a positive image. “ This has been perfectly epitomized by Mr Rocard who is the living and well publicised study case that medical tourism was waiting for. Actually there was another case previously when Nepal Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala needed medical care in 2006 (he went to Thailand). Even though in this case, the medical operation performed was an emergency one, the comoplexity of the latter and the good results expected makes it a very good ad. Plus Michel Rocard, soon to be 77, commented extendidly on the quality of the service in India, the warmth of the medical staff etc etc. He also commented that Nicolas Sarkozy a right wingist had been very with him, a left wingist (the political scenary in France is in shambles conversly to medical tourism).

In a more serious note, I feel that what medical tourism needs is PR agents. The main marketing tool used to lure medical patients is the cost effects but not the technical prowess used or the genuine difference in terms of service or sometimes or after surgery care. These PR agents can only be reputed or famed people. When thinking twice about it, everything began with Pamela Anderson and her silicon breasts that never exploded but were partially removed. For men it was a cosmetic revolution, for women a source of complexion. 30 million US citizens are actually seeking for cosmetic surgery thanks to her. But if we look at things inverted, if an Indian hospital could save Brad Pitt or Maria Carey, how would people react? By converting them into Indian pilgrims, or perhaps by taking a closer look on these hospitals.

So Brad, Maria, if you want to help the industry, you know what you have to do!!

Let’s visit Bumrungrad through this video. You will then understand why I want to dig into the medical tourism business (sorry the video is a little bit dim)

Here is the official trailer of this movie talking about what we are fighting against: inefficient medical systems

In my previous post I was just observing a high increase of old people among the Singaporean population while hinting that this could force local authorities to revamp their hospital room offer in the future. Yet, I must admit I needed to do extensive research to get a better grasp on the Singaporean medical system.

In which ward was this Superhero? A, B1, B2, C?

In fact, the medical system is two fold: we have on one side the Public System (7 Public Hospitals + 6 specialised clinics) and on the other side Private hospitals (among which the Parkway’s hospitals). However the quality of the service is not only ventalited among hospitals (havoing one top class hospitals then mid class than low class) but even inside the hospitals. In fact, there is a system called ward class to classify the kind of services that one is entitled to. There are 4 classes, A, B1, B2 and C, A being the best (suites with all the confort and care you can imagine) while C is basic accomodation (5 beds dormitories) and basic care. Why such differences?

 These differences mainly come from the Philosophy of the Singaporean governmenent for whom Medical care is not based on equality but on equity. Every one should be able to access to care but in the same way every one can opt for the kind of care they want. In fact, not all the rich people are opting for Ward A: out of the 20% richest people in Singapore only 60% are going to A and B1 hospital (and conversly 3% of the 20% poorest people in Sg are going to ward As).

The social system is associating a compulsory saving system (Medisave) but there is still a co payment to make, so going to Ward A does not strictly depends on the amount one has on Medisave but on his will to get the best care and accomodation possible (there is a minimum threshold  that varies from one ward to another)

Hence, every hospital have to make sure it contains the right segmentation of wards. Rate of occupation in Public Hospitals are very high already (76%) but quite low for Private Hospitals (below 60% in general) as they have opted for the highest ward classes. Private Hospital really needs international patient to be profitable. In fact, a public hospital though run like a professional organisation is nonetheless a non profit (I mean officially speaking). The polical clout is way more sizable than any other subject, yet we can ask ourselves if the Singaporian medical system is equitable for all international visitors… (as usual check out for part 2!) 

A few days ago I remembered one very trite fact. Before 1965, Singapore was still part of the Third World and quickly positionned itself as one of its leaders. I read about an innovative public management with highly paid top public servants many public private collaborations, an efficient central planning. But what really shocked me was that in 1965 the average  age in Singapore was 18,8 years old, while now it’s 32,7. Now, the demographic transition is well consumed as Singapore will have 1/4 of its population beyond 60 year old in 2030!

The Tan Toc Seng hospital - A new fashionable hangout for old people?

This ageing population is posing huge problems as Singapore hasn’t yet adjust to the high health cost implied. In fact today; Singapore has an extremly low private health expenditure barely toping the 2,5% of GDP against Mamoth expenditures such as in the UK 17,8% in 2004 or Australia 34,2%. Even though this is mainly due to the little amount of second opinion requested, the welfare system(that is not equalitarian but socially oriented) or even the small number of hypocondriac people (compared to some European countries), this small figure is stemming from a healthy population. This figure should indeed soar up to 5% by 2030, exactly the same figure  than in 1965.

All in all, Singapore has been viewed for years by the World Health Organisation as the 5th or 6th best medical system in the world. The central planning is perfectly channeling its demographic evolution while promoting the expansion of medical tourism activities (Singapore is expecting 1 million medical tourists per year in a short horizon). The number of beds should grow as the City  State establish itself as the best medica hub in the World but is gearing towards a bicaphal approach: geryatrics and the outsourcing of general medical procedures… Not exactly the same thing…

Phillippines is currentlyt the fifth medical tourism player in Asia lagging behind Singapopore, India, Thailand and Malaysia. However, the government is strongly stressing the importance of developing this sector as it is perceived as a strategic tourism niche for the years to come. The country indeed benefits from its position (midway to India, not far from Japan and Korea) and its culture (english speaking population) to lure many tourists

At the Hospital Queen Elizabeth it’s all thumbs up to climb the ladder

Yet, the medical sector is far from impressive when compared to top notch countries such as Singapore. The government is now strongly pushing for more private initiatives in the medical sector and better human resource development in cahoots with getting well trained doctors and surgeons in their hospitals, the country itself being threatened by overmigration (mostly towards the U.S.). Being a low income country is indeed not the main problem: when looking at Cuba or Sri Lanka we are confronted with excellent medical systems retaining excellent practitioners. When looking at those systems we had four key factors:

+ A compulsory community service through which any medical diploma led to servicing the public sector

+ Strong incentives aiming at keeping doctors.

+ The development of polyclinics.

+ The development of an independent pharmaceutical industry (Cuba developed its own vaccines and drugs)

Medical tourism only started two years ago, in 2005, but has already met sizable success. The overall income related to medical tourism was topping the 200 million USD threshold for the first year of operation (I didn’t find anything yet for 2006, but I imagine that this figure must have grown). In fact, at the fall of 2006, Philippines held its first medical tourism congress in Pasay City. I didn’t attend this Congress but I daresay it looked like an Allstar game, just by judging by the participants: Philippine Public Private Partnership ambassador, Philippine’s Health, the Trade and Industry Secretary and Presidential Committee on Health and Wellness Chairman, the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), the Philippine Retirement Authority (PRA) Chairman… and the President himself. I guess that tourism in

In fact the type of customer it can bring is extremely varied going from Asian retirees in maxi real Estate programs for ageing populations or American uninsured workers looking for a combination of cheap treatment and English speaking environment.

Quoting the president: “Cost is competitive and quality is high. Filipino professionals can serve the world right here at home, as we provide more jobs downstream and cut down poverty”

Here comes the earthquake. 7.2 on Richter’s scale!

First you need an hospital

Bumrungrad International is perhaps the leading hospital in medical tourism. The Thailandese hospital offers 554 beds, 30 speciality centres, 900 medical specialists and over 800 nurses. It is Thailand’s first JCI-accredited hospital and serves more than one million patients yearly from 190 different countries.  The hospital reports that it has served 60000 patients form the US in 2006! The hospital features not only 5 star hotel services but also a genuine F&B center with the likes of McDonald and Starbucks just to quote some.

Then take a major US health-insurer with 1.3 million members

Shake it.

You’ll have BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina forming an alliance thourgh Companion Global Healthcare with the private medical centre by which it will direct members interested in overseas medical treatment to Bumrungrad assisted by a US-based contact centre managed by World Access, a travel-insurance and international healthcare-assistance company.

The US in Thailand… A Mc Donald In Bumrungrad hospital

I really feel that this move could ultimately lead to medical outsourcing… In fact, the main problem with medical tourism is the lack of backing by national insurance programs with an important number of affiliates. Before this major move, only little networks were offering complementary insurances at  a low cost. Now, there is a genuine will to do whatever it takes to reduce the bill and to trigger it by gaining a critical volume. When looking at Bumrungrad we have the impression that sky is the limit…

Finally the medical tourism map is working! It is still in its infancy so keep an eye on it

The newest features is a list of hospitals and spas in Asia. It will be gradually completed by articles specially dedicated to the latter during my future trips in Asia. I think I am going to fly to Singapore in mid June… You can access this page thanks to the toolbar in the header…

Tomorrow we’ll talk about online medical resources. but now it is the first of May and as you know, people just want to go out on this particular day…

The European Union is now taking a close look to the evolution of the medical tourism industry. In fact, MPs at the European Parliament considers the patient safety as part of their responsibilities, hence, on Tuesday 27 February, European Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou officially discussed new health strategy to counter balance the will of patients to fly out of Europe to find better medical services.

With regard to patient mobility, he said that his department was currently examining the responses to the consultation exercise on health services and that the Commission initiative was based on the need to consolidate legal security, following various Court judgments which stated that the rules of free movement also applied to health care.

The Commission discussed the possible creation of centres of excellence for the treatment of particular illnesses on the European Territory in order to propose specific answers to rare condition treatment seekers as well as to better the output and the productivity of certain medical centers. Specialisation of centers is indeed a productivist thinking yet it remains to be seen if this is the best solution available.

Going to Poland to get your teeth fixed: a European Union approved move?

Several MPs, like German Social Democrat Dagmar Roth-Behrendt, have called for the future regulation to cover issues such as: information for patients, the quality of care and providers, centres of excellence, compulsory exchange of experiences and directions on patient average waiting time before treatment (this being a touchy issue as waiting times vary from one illness to another)

Another intersting point was raised during this session by French (yes!) UMP MEP Françoise Grossetête. She warned of discrimination that could arise with mobility: in fact, people don’t all have the same access to information, nor the same ability to move to receive treatment or benefit from the services of a particular recognised professional. A possible answer to this concern is to institutionalize health information and officilaly sponsor mobility to guarentee better access to saefty. If medical tourism is not exactly the model promoted through these discussions, the European Union is now really seeing medical travel that could be a move against a system where insurance companies forced patients to go where treatment is cheapest.

Complaints are rising in the US because of the lack of price and quality informlation and health care.  A study from the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) (february 2007) says the complainers are causing the problems they are so vexed about because unlike in other market qualitative information and transparen,t price are services that are available only if the end customer pays for it.

“The primary reason no one knows what doctors and hospitals charge prior to treatment is that they do not compete for patients based on price,” said NCPA President John Goodman, who co-authored the study. “When they don’t compete on price, it turns out they don’t compete on quality either. In a very real sense doctors and hospitals are not competing for patients at all.”

At the end of the day, hospitals have little stake when trying to lure patients. In fact, the orientation of a customer depends on a problem of convenience as an insurer will decide to send a customer to an hospital according to its localisation ans its belonging to the network. This game is hampering the development of the overall quality of healthcare services as insurers typically do not pay for many services that would lower overall health care cost and would improve the quality. 

The NCPA study lists down the following downfalls resulting from this lack of competition:

+ No Integrated Care:

+ Taking responsibility for the treatment of a patient’s case from beginning to end.

+ No Patient Education resulting in no self care:

+ No Telephone and E-Mail Consultations:

+ No Electronic Medical Records: 

All this downfalls can be perfectly adressed by medical tourism as international hospitals have to create genuine competitive advantages and online solutions in order to justify the outsourcing of the medical procedure. 

Selling the competitive advantages of a foreign hospital to make a difference as an insurer

When looking at Phillipines, actually 5th competitor among Asian medical tourism players, thlocal hospitals must find innovative solutions to compete with mega groups such as Sunway, Parkway or Fortis. What makes this study about the American Health particularly intersting is that the elements listed above are excellent leverage to make a difference for any hospital or for any medical service provider. 

In fact, even though the game played by insurers bypasses hospitals, insurers cannot dodge the competition between each other. If American hospitals cannot provide them competitive advantages to make a difference an Asian hospital could give an insurer a clear cut hedge if the latter decides to give credit to medical tourism strategie. Some insurers are now pondering over the fact of proposing medical tourism as an option, referring all the specific features of these foreign based hospitals as differentiating factors.

Tourism Quality has been a well documented matter for the last several years. However, before getting started we should ponder over the notion of quality. Tourism Quality has three components that must be sustained through:

(1) internal customer satisfaction

(2) external customer satisfaction

(3) the efficiency of processes

Satisfaction implies that we must translate subjectivity to objectivity. Expectations vary widely from one customer to another. Controlling these various factors should help extending the life time value of a customer that is calculated as follows (Christopher, 1998):

Life time value = average transaction value x yearly frequency of purchase x customer life expectancy

Hence, we should make sure that the purchasing act is repeated and that the level of satisfaction is sufficient and the level of disturbance low enough to arouse a long life expectancy per customer.This LTV should be factored in the Consumer Value Equation (CVE): 

Value = (Results produced for the customer + Process quality)/(Price to the customer + Costs of acquiring the services)

Quality ‘inn’ Medical Tourism: How to reach the stars?

Looking at medical tourism, how can this niche maximize value?

The results produced for the consumer are very important: it is a mix of preventive care that will trim down their risk of catching a decease for instance plus the opportunity to visit new and exotic places highly valued by tourism specialists and by collective imagination. The cachet of Thailand or of Bali by itself deems a psychological high price tag.

The process must flow: the value perceived of this flow will be conditioned by the quality of the incoming services provided by the medical tourism agency.

On the other side, medical tourism achieves an interesting benefit automatically: cost cutting! As we have seen it several times already, the expenses linked to the medical procedure are slashed, and easily covers additional costs generated by tourism activities.

All in all, getting a hedge on medical tourism Value will consist in providing the best incoming services possible.  We also have to take notice on the sustainability of these services and understand that the customer is part of the process and therefore that any improvement in the delivery service must be accepted by him.

Another night surfing to discover the wonderful world of podcasts. And oh my I meet this fabulous trend of medicasts: medical podcasts. Podcasting is a practical way to keep in touch with a center of interest: you only need to subscribe to a podcast to receive a regular flow of information.

nevertheless we have various kind of medicasts: the ones that talks about complex medical procedures, for specialists only, and the other one talking about self care, health awarness.

Tech medecine and its author Joshua Schwimmer has recently posted extensive desciptions of some of these podcasts. the most interesting examples I have come through being: the Health Update podcast made by Jane Brody, columnist of the New york Times and the John Hopkins Health News podcast by Dr. Rick Lange, chief of clinical cardiology at Hopkins, and Elizabeth Tracey, director of the Hopkins Health NewsFeed. These are two interesting podcasts as they offer non technical information that can be used to monitor ourselves the evolution of our health status or get information about medical practices.

before getting to the PRM, let’s here from MY hospital

What is interesting beyond the existence of such podcasts is the array of utilisation of the latter most notably from a marketing point of view. The podcast has generated what some has called ‘narrow casting’ (Dr. Johnathan Sterne - Mc Gill University) namely, podcasts bty imposing an active elective step (subscribing or not), implicates in heavier mode the podcast auditor. Podcasting helps to better target a more attentive audience.

Marketing of private hospital through basic advertising channels perhaps has met its limitations and medical podcasting could be a new way to market an hospital as a whole and its doctors and surgeons. the direct ripple effect could be to accentuate the identity of an hospital by promoting a community effect that goes beyond the patient doctor relation.

However, this practice is not risk free: the expectations that a podcast should meet in terms of quality is way higher than what an add in a magazine should reach. The qualitative work that sustains a podcast has to be satisfactory enough to generate positive feedback or the backlash could be impressive… Medicasts propagated by hospitals should hence focus on one objective: bring practical and simple information to its audience while still keeping at bay its promotion scheme.

Still we can ponder over the possibility of using podcasting/videocasting for the sake of promoting medical tourism activities….