Abstract
Although a growing body of literature has emerged to study medical tourism and address the policy challenges it creates for national health care systems, the comparative scholarship on the topic remains too limited in scope. In this article, we draw on the existing literature to discuss a comparative research agenda on medical tourism that stresses the multifaceted relationship between medical tourism and the institutional characteristics of national health care systems. On the one hand, we claim that such characteristics shape the demand for medical tourism in each country. On the other hand, the institutional characteristics of each national health care system can shape the very nature of the impact of medical tourism on that particular country. Using the examples of Canada and the United States, this article formulates a systematic institutionalist research agenda to explore these two related sides of the medical tourism-health care system nexus with a view to informing future policy work in this field.
Highlights
In this era of globalized medicine, when international travel and access to online health information are readily accessible, medical tourism is an important issue both for national health care systems and from a global health perspective [1,2,3]
This article discussed the relationship between medical tourism and key institutional aspects of national health care systems with a view to highlighting the value in a comparative research agenda focused on identifying and evaluating policy options
We argued that these characteristics directly affect the demand for medical tourism in each country
Summary
In this era of globalized medicine, when international travel and access to online health information are readily accessible, medical tourism is an important issue both for national health care systems and from a global health perspective [1,2,3]. With a view to informing policy related to medical tourism, this article discusses the value of a comparative research agenda about medical tourism that stresses the multifaceted relationship between medical tourism and the institutional characteristics of national health care systems.
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