Abstract
BackgroundEach year, the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) spends millions of dollars to cover the costs of United Arab Emirates (UAE) nationals seeking healthcare overseas. Patients may travel overseas to seek an array of treatments. It is important to analyze the number of trips and treatment destinations for patients travelling overseas to provide baseline information for the DHA to improve polices and strategies related to overseas treatment for UAE nationals.MethodsAdministrative data were obtained from the DHA for UAE nationals who sought medical treatment overseas during 2009–2016. We examined the number of trips and treatment destinations by medical specialty, age, gender, years of travel and travel seasons. Multinomial logistic and negative binomial regression models were used to assess the relationships of the treatment destinations and number of trips, respectively, with the key variables of interest.ResultsThe study included data from 6557 UAE nationals. The top three treatment destinations were Germany (46%), the UK (19%) and Thailand (14%). The most common medical specialties were orthopedic surgery (13%), oncology (13%) and neurosurgery (10%). Oncology had the highest expected number of trips adjusted for a number of covariates (IRR 1.34, 95% CI: 1.24–1.44). Regarding destination variation, patients had a lower relative risk ratio of seeking healthcare in Germany in the winter (RRR 0.68, 95% CI: 0.57–0.80). Endocrinology was the most common medical specialty sought in the UK (RRR 3.36, 95% CI: 2.01–5.60).ConclusionsThis is the first study to systematically examine the current practice of medical treatment overseas among UAE nationals. The results demonstrate that treatment destinations, medical specialties for which treatment was sought, age, gender and travel season are significant factors in understanding overseas travel for medical care. The study can guide the DHA in collecting more data for further research that may lead to policy-relevant information about sending patients to the best-quality treatment choices at an optimal cost.
Highlights
The demand for global healthcare services is experiencing tremendous growth [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
The Dubai Health Authority (DHA), the government health entity that oversees healthcare services in the emirate of Dubai, spends an average total expenditure of 77 million dollars to cover the costs for an average of 1500 United Arab Emirates (UAE) national patients seeking healthcare overseas [8]
The birth date was converted to age, with 7 groups as a categorical variable based on age-specific disease and medical specialty patterns by age
Summary
The demand for global healthcare services is experiencing tremendous growth [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. The Dubai Health Authority (DHA), the government health entity that oversees healthcare services in the emirate of Dubai, spends an average total expenditure of 77 million dollars to cover the costs for an average of 1500 UAE national patients seeking healthcare overseas [8]. The government of Dubai owns 4 DHA hospitals and 14 primary healthcare centers. In addition to the DHA, the Ministry of Health (MOH), owns and operates 2 hospitals and 9 primary healthcare centers in Dubai. The government of Dubai provides free healthcare services to UAE nationals as mandated by government law within government facilities, a number of patients travel to seek healthcare outside the UAE. The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) spends millions of dollars to cover the costs of United Arab Emirates (UAE) nationals seeking healthcare overseas. It is important to analyze the number of trips and treatment destinations for patients travelling overseas to provide baseline information for the DHA to improve polices and strategies related to overseas treatment for UAE nationals
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