International Healthcare Services Research Articles

THE ROLE OF HEALTH TOURISM TRAVEL AGENCIES IN HEALTH TOURISM

In today's world, health tourism is rapidly gaining popularity. Patients travel internationally to access various healthcare services and treatments, such as medical procedures, cosmetic surgery, dental care, thermal tourism, and spa-wellness services. One of the critical factors contributing to a successful experience in the challenging and complex journey of health tourism is the role played by health tourism travel agencies. These agencies facilitate patients' access to international healthcare services, guide patients, organize their travel, and offer personalized solutions to meet their needs. In addition to coordinating logistics, travel agencies help ensure a seamless healthcare experience by addressing cultural and language barriers and improving communication between patients and healthcare providers. This study aims to define the roles and responsibilities of health tourism travel agencies, emphasizing their growing importance in the global healthcare landscape.

Constructing healthcare services markets: networks, brokers and the China-England engagement

Healthcare services is an expanding international market with which national healthcare systems engage, and from which they benefit, to greater and lesser degrees. This study examines the case of the China-England engagement in healthcare services as a vehicle for illuminating the way in which such market relationships are constructed. China and England have different approaches to the international healthcare services market. Aware of the knowledge and technology gaps between itself and the leading capitalist nations of the West in healthcare, as in other sectors, the Chinese leadership has encouraged a variety of international engagements to facilitate the bridging of these gaps including accessing new supply and demand relationships in international markets. These engagements are situated within an approach to health system development based on establishing broad policy directions, allowing a degree of local innovation, initiating and evaluating pilot studies, and promulgating new programmatic frameworks at central and local levels. The assumption is that the new knowledge and technologies are integrated into this approach and implemented under the guidance of Chinese experts and leaders. England's healthcare system has the knowledge resources to provide the supply to meet at least some of the China demand but has yet to develop fully the means to enable an efficient market response, though such economic engagement is supported by the UK's trade related departments of state. As a result, the development of China-England commercial relationships in patient care, professional education and hospital and healthcare service development has been led largely by high status NHS Trusts and private sector organisations with the entrepreneurial capacity to exploit their market position. Drawing on their established international clinicians and commercial teams with experience of domestic private sector provision, these institutions have built trust-based collaborations sufficiently robust to facilitate demand-supply relationships in the international healthcare services market. Often key to the development of relations required to make commercial exchange feasible and practicable are a range of international brokers with the skills and capacity to provide the necessary linkage with individual healthcare consumers and institutional clients in China. Integral to the broker role, and often supplied by the broker itself, are the communication technologies of telemedicine to enable the interaction between consumer and healthcare provider, be this in patient care, professional education or healthcare service development. Although England's healthcare system has the knowledge required to respond to China's market demand and such economic engagement is supported and actively encouraged by the UK's trade related departments of state, the response is constrained by multiple domestic demands on its resources and by the limits of the NHS approach to marketisation in healthcare.

Case study: international healthcare service quality, building a model for cultivating cultural sensitivity.

In the context of medical tourism, cultural differences and language barriers are unneglectable factors, which compromise the shared decision-making between doctor and patients. This study constructs a cultural sensitivity cultivation (CSC) model that could be used to train medical professionals in the sector of medical tourism. Since 2016, there have been explorations in new strategies to offer better services. A critical step added is to include clients' perspectives in the re-examining process as a way to cultivate cultural sensitivity among the service providers. This practice expands to the sector of medical tourism. In our case study, we are able to conclude a new model that could yield quality international healthcare services. The steps of our CSC model include (i) 'Promote Awareness' for shifting mindset, (ii) 'Share Scenarios' for developing empathy and compassion, (iii) 'Review Process' for collecting detail feedback, (iv) 'Identify Gaps' for targeting areas for improvement and (v) 'Improve Systems,' for changing standard operation procedures (SOPs) based on the strategies through Assmann's theory with a cultural-anthropological approach. After Kuang Tien General Hospital (KTGH) implemented the new model for 1 year, the number of international patients has increased by 64%. More research could be done in the future to cover all the important aspects of providing international medical services and could apply the CSC model to different healthcare settings. To optimize the shared decision-making between the doctor and medical traveler patients, healthcare providers should not only overcome language and cultural barriers but also should avoid unnecessary gestures in terms of status respect. Inviting patients to be co-investigator for quality improvement is a viable solution.

OA223] Establishing a unified system for logging radiation incidents in an international healthcare services organisation

Purpose Working in a dynamic, complex and high workload environment can lead to unintended radiation exposures. Unintended does not mean unable to prevent. Establishing a unified incident management system in an international healthcare services organisation facilitates better identification of safety critical steps. A bigger ‘pool of events’ can identify trends in incident types and maximize improvement opportunities across the whole system. Methods There is never a single cause for an incident to happen. The incident management system of the organization, AIMS, is a tool developed to log and learn from any adverse events that concern patients, staff or third-parties under the organization’s care. AIMS is not designed to be an administrative tool to find and penalise individuals, but to support collective learning within the organization network to prevent failures and avoid harm. AIMS is a digital platform accessible to all personnel to log incidents and good catches; incidents which were prevented, due to timely and competent personnel action. It is purposefully a four click process to promote easy and fast logging of events, including process stage, incident type and severity. Once an event is logged, approval of the information provided is required before investigation and analysis of the root causes that lead to the event are initiated. Results AIMS allows the process stage to be logged – that is, the stage in the journey at which the event occurred. In-depth investigation identifies failures in the often-complex healthcare environment, allows detection of risks and developing ways to reduce or eliminate the risk of reoccurrence. Good catches and incidents of moderate and above severity are shared with the group regularly as a learning process. Root cause analysis of events allows scrutiny of the preceding process stages, in order to identify contributory factors leading up to the event and definition of actions. Conclusions To Err is Human. We cannot change the human condition, but we can change the condition under which humans’ work. Incident management is a valuable tool to promote a safety culture and awareness through the involvement of and feedback to staff and managers.

НАПРАВЛЕНИЯ ИНТЕГРАЦИИ РОССИЙСКОЙ СИСТЕМЫ ЗДРАВООХРАНЕНИЯ В МЕЖДУНАРОДНЫЙ РЫНОК МЕДИЦИНСКИХ УСЛУГ

International healthcare service trade, standardization of production and consumption, implementation of telemedicine technologies and innovative methods of treatment are modern trends that lead to the formation of the international market of medical services. In terms of profound demographic shifts, all the aspects related to the improvement of the quality and extension of life of people acquire decisive importance for all countries. In this regard, the medical service market has huge growth potential. The dynamic development of international medical service trade actively involves Russia in this process. The article analyses the tendencies of development of Russian market of medical services in relation to global trends in the international market. Its consideration in this context will help to identify possible ways to deepen the further integration of Russian market into the global processes. The article considers the current situation at the medical service market in the Russian Federation and the ways of its adaptation to the requirements of the international market aiming to increase the level of integration in accordance with a key trend of the development (expansion of the use of telemedicine technologies; formation of the international medical specialization of the countries; active involvement of healthcare services into international exchange; to increase funding for medical services, etc.). Scientifically substantiated is the use of the trend to increase competitiveness of the Russian medical service market by providing information and consulting support to the Russian medical firms in order to give them a chance to be included in the international rating and accreditation processes. The findings and results of the study can be used by the executive authorities in the field of healthcare for substantiating effective ways of integration of the domestic medical service market into the global market.

Nursing education in the United States, Thailand, and China: Literature review

The global shortage of nurses intensifies the challenge to recruit more nurses. Therefore, nursing educators in different countries need to collaborate their efforts in solving this problem because nursing schools are responsible for supplying sufficient numbers of skilled nurses for both national and international health care services. In addition, with the increase of global travelling, it is important for nurses to know how to take care of people with different cultural backgrounds. Therefore, the scientific knowledge of this paper was provided (1) Through a review of the historical development of nursing education in the selected countries, which can help readers understand why there are a diversity of nursing programs and the current strength of nursing education in the selected countries. (2) Through a review of current programs in the selected countries, which can help readers to enhance international academic communication and facilitate international exchange among nurses, nurse educators and nurse students. (3) Through a review of the issues of nursing education in the selected countries, which can help nurse educators design the appropriate nursing programs according to the societal needs.

PPPM (Predictive, Preventive and Personalized Medicine) as a New Model of the National and International Healthcare Services and Thus a Promising Strategy to Prevent a Disease: From Basics to Practice

Nowadays the system of public health is constructed in such a manner so that its main objective is the recovery of an already sick person, while prediction and prevention receive little attention. Meanwhile the development of these aspects of medicine can lead to the ability to control morbidity among the population, to identify chronic and genetic diseases in the early stages of development, and thus to prevent their further progression. This will reduce traditionally high costs of sick people treatment and the number of disabled population, and improve the quality and duration of life. The elaboration of new fields of science that are working on the study and interpretation of data obtained during laboratory and clinical research, creation of new methods for diagnosis, prognosis and treatment, provides an opportunity now to implement a new strategy, called PPPM, and gets promising results, which should lead to further development of an existing medicine.

The impact of psychological distance on Chinese customers when selecting an international healthcare service country

This paper investigates how the factors of psychological and geographical distances in conjunction with medical competence influence potential Chinese customers when they select a destination country for international healthcare services. We also explore how the severity of the customer's illness affects his/her choice. In this study data is collected with reference to the Chinese perceptions of the United States of America (USA), Republic of Korea (Korea), Thailand, Singapore, and India. The sample comprises of 1292 potential Chinese customers, and is analyzed using McFadden's conditional logit model. The results indicate that medical competency is the most important determinant of destination choice. In addition, customers contemplating treatment for major diseases tend to choose healthcare services from economically more developed countries, such as the USA, in spite of the differences in language, economic condition, and political system. However, respondents considering treatment for relatively minor diseases are more likely to select countries, such as Korea, for which there is a small psychological distance. Along with suggestions for future research, the implications for international healthcare are discussed.

The Study on the Importance of Psychic Distance affecting Choice of International Healthcare Service

The Study on the Importance of Psychic Distance affecting Choice of International Healthcare Service