International Medical Travel Research Articles

The market of medical tourism: opportunities and perspectives

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic and the complex geopolitical situation have considerably reduced international medical travel, which has had a significant impact on the medical tourism market. At the same time, these circumstances have acted as a trigger for expanding the range of opportunities in the domestic market and the emergence of new types of medical services, such as vaccine tourism.
 AIM: To study the current opportunities of the medical tourism market in Russia and to outline promising areas for its development and optimization in view of the existing limitations.
 MATERIALS AND METHODS: The article reviews current legislative and regulatory legal acts, publications of modern authors on the issue of medical tourism development in Russia and also studies the demand for and popularity of medical tourism among the consumer audience (through Google Trends service).
 RESULTS: Based on the analysis, it is established that the main difficulties of medical tourism sector development in our country at the present stage are weak transport infrastructure, low targeting of services and imperfections of the unified register.
 CONCLUSION: Such problems as weak transport infrastructure, low targeting and amateur private sector activities reduce the pace of development of domestic tourism. Given the current shortcomings, optimization of the domestic medical tourism market in Russia requires building new logistics solutions.

Identifying the themes of medical tourism business in Iran: A systematic review.

BACKGROUND:Nowadays, medical tourism reports impressive growth in terms of number of persons, income, and number of countries involved in cross-border flows. It refers to people traveling abroad (from home to a target country) to obtain medical treatment. The present study aimed to identify the themes and codes of the medical tourism business in Iran.MATERIALS AND METHODS:We searched international databases (such as PubMed, Scopus, Embase, and Web of Science) and Iranian bibliography thesaurus and repositories (namely, Scientific Information Database and Magiran) using keywords such as medical tourism, international medical travel, and medical tourism business in the English and Persian literature, published between January 2000 and December 2019, identified with no restriction on the type of the studies. The data were analyzed based on the content analysis method.RESULTS:Out of 1054 articles, 14 were finally selected. In the end, eight themes of the medical tourism business including competitive pricing, safety and security, information and communication technology, labor market and human resources, structure management, leading the way in medical tourism, infrastructure, and exchange with the international world were identified which on the whole contain 45 codes. Most of the articles were quantitative. Four of the themes (competitive price, labor market and human resources, structure management, and infrastructure) were most frequent and of the highest importance.CONCLUSION:The themes and codes identified in this study helps companies and individuals who want to work in the field of medical tourism. According to this study, all 8 themes and 45 codes are of high value, but still, some themes are of higher value than others and special attention should be paid to them.

Dying Overseas: Reflections on Translations of Care in International Medical Travel Hospitals in Malaysia and Thailand

As people undertake medical treatments outside their own health care jurisdictions, complex clinical, ethical, and financial factors are involved. While a growing body of literature considers patie...

Moralities in international medical travel: moral logics in the narratives of Indonesian patients and locally-based facilitators in Malaysia

ABSTRACT This paper views international medical travel through the lens of medical migrations and contextualises it within regional historical linkages. Drawing from fieldwork with staff, facilitators, and Indonesian patients in two Malaysian private hospitals, it frames international medical travel as a moral endeavour, and aims to uncover the premises that make this endeavour meaningful and desirable. Understanding moralities as a field of embodied predispositions created in the dynamics of social interaction, we argue that a strand of moral logic underlies the practice of medical travel. We call this the morality of need, which dictates that people do whatever they can for themselves and their families’ medical needs, including travelling abroad, as well as ‘help others’ by giving information and accompanying them overseas for their medical needs. This moral logic co-exists in tension with a morality of business that accepts the legitimacy of generating earnings from people’s medical needs. Within this moral framework, international medical travel is seen as a necessary practice for sustaining health and well-being, and extends beyond the family as social and moral support for others facing similar predicaments.

Sociality and transnational social space in the making of medical tourism: local actors and Indonesian patients in Malaysia

ABSTRACTWe investigate international medical travel between Indonesia and Malaysia through the conceptual lens of sociality, transnational social space and therapeutic mobilities. Drawing upon narratives of local persons, medical traveller-patients, accompanying family members, hospital staff and medical travel facilitators, we illustrate how multifaceted linkages and processes generate and sustain the flow of patients across the border. In these narratives, we see multiple mobilities articulate and cross-cut in the building of transnational connections. This paper stretches the concept of transnational social space to apply to medical travel and contributes to the literature framing of international medical travel as a complex and multifaceted arena.

Medical travel facilitators, private hospitals and international medical travel in assemblage

AbstractInternational medical travel may be viewed as an ‘assemblage’ of various components such as infrastructure, hospitals, finance, transport, technologies, staff, facilitators and patients. In this paper, we focus on the articulations of medical travel facilitators (MTFs) and private hospitals in producing international medical travel in the context of the neoliberalising processes that had led to the rise of corporate hospital care in Malaysia in the 1990s. We draw from three hospital case studies for a comparative perspective. We highlight the shifting, unstable and contingent relations and interactions of the MTFs, as one component of the assemblage of international medical travel, with hospitals and medical travellers. We identify the practices of MTFs in providing patients with information and advice about hospitals and doctors as efforts to shape patients' choices in the selection of health‐care providers and in decision‐making. The assemblage approach allows us to see how the MTFs emerge and stabilise as a collective identity for individuals and companies performing particular functions through their multifarious articulations with other components in various sites of assemblage.

International medical travel and the politics of transnational mobility in Asia

Asia Pacific ViewpointVolume 58, Issue 2 p. 129-135 Editorial International medical travel and the politics of transnational mobility in Asia Heng Leng Chee, Heng Leng Chee cheehengleng@gmail.com orcid.org/0000-0001-6731-8724 Centre for Research on Women and Gender (KANITA), Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Gelugor, Penang, Malaysia, and the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, Kent Ridge, SingaporeSearch for more papers by this authorAndrea Whittaker, Andrea Whittaker andrea.whittaker@monash.edu orcid.org/0000-0002-2616-9651 Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Melbourne, Vic, 3800 AustraliaSearch for more papers by this authorBrenda S.A. Yeoh, Brenda S.A. Yeoh geosya@nus.edu.sg orcid.org/0000-0002-0240-3175 Department of Geography, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, Kent Ridge, SingaporeSearch for more papers by this author Heng Leng Chee, Heng Leng Chee cheehengleng@gmail.com orcid.org/0000-0001-6731-8724 Centre for Research on Women and Gender (KANITA), Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Gelugor, Penang, Malaysia, and the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, Kent Ridge, SingaporeSearch for more papers by this authorAndrea Whittaker, Andrea Whittaker andrea.whittaker@monash.edu orcid.org/0000-0002-2616-9651 Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Melbourne, Vic, 3800 AustraliaSearch for more papers by this authorBrenda S.A. Yeoh, Brenda S.A. Yeoh geosya@nus.edu.sg orcid.org/0000-0002-0240-3175 Department of Geography, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, Kent Ridge, SingaporeSearch for more papers by this author First published: 01 August 2017 https://doi.org/10.1111/apv.12164Citations: 9Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume58, Issue2Special Issue: International Medical Travel August 2017Pages 129-135 RelatedInformation

Regional circuits of international medical travel: Prescriptions of trust, cultural affinity and history

AbstractIntra‐regional medical travel by patients from Indonesia to Penang in Malaysia is embedded in and facilitated by regional circuits. Although such movement is fuelled by dissatisfaction with the health‐care services offered in Indonesia, we argue that these contemporary movements for health care are also a continuation of existing exchanges for trade, education and cultural ties that have long existed. In the first part of the paper, we consider the historical interconnections between the locations of Medan and Aceh in Indonesia and Penang in Malaysia. Based upon fieldwork and interviews with 70 intra‐regional patients travelling to Penang for treatment, we describe how these interconnections are now manifested in travel for medical care. We argue that the temporary exit from the Indonesian health system to pursue care in hospitals in Penang by some Chinese Indonesians and Acehnese follows patterns and logics based on social histories of discrimination and conflict as well as geographical convenience. This highlights the need to contextualise such travel not just as geographic movements across space but also through the depth of time and local histories.

Medical Tourism Development in Dubai: Managing Challenges and Opportunities

Objective – International medical travel is one of the fastest growing and lucrative segments of the tourism industry of this century. In the past, affluent people from Middle Eastern countries travelled abroad to the UK or USA for medical surgery and not wealthy citizens from developed countries are seeking affordable, accessible, world class quality of healthcare with modern medical technology, no waiting lists and combining it with a holiday. Dubai has established itself as a destination that can offer all this to foreign medical travellers. Methodology/Technique This paper is exploratory in nature and provides a conceptual study to investigate the expansion, challenges and economic opportunities for developing, promoting and managing Dubai as a medical tourism destination, which is a unique contribution to the theory of medical tourism management. Findings The study indicated several interesting findings regarding challenges such as highly dependence of UAE on foreign human resources, providing safety to migrant workers, implementing integrated medical tourism policy, global health insurance transferability, establishing legal and regulatory issues and others. Novelty : This paper has presented ground breaking findings indicating the issues faced by the Dubai Government regarding the growth and sustainability of medical tourism.The lack of direct access to the Dubai Government and medical tourists is a limitation of this study. Type of Paper: Review Keywords: Dubai; Medical Travel; Tourism; Development; Healthcare Management.

Reducing the scale? From global images to border crossings in medical tourism

AbstractInternational medical travel has increased in the last 20 years, becoming more diverse and complex, although definitions and data on its growth and structure are inadequate. Many countries, especially in the Global South, have sought to develop medical tourism for both strategic and defensive reasons. Few have been successful. Standard descriptions and images of medical tourism suggest global markets, elite patient travellers and the dominance of cosmetic surgery, alongside the privatization and corporatization of hospital chains. Most international medical travel is, however, short‐distance, diasporic, across adjacent and nearby borders, and of relatively poor patients seeking cheaper, more effective or available care in appropriate cultural contexts, for straightforward procedures. Social networks, rather than the internet, shape choices and decisions on destinations. Porous international borders are crucial to medical travel and have resulted in the emergence of formal trans‐border health regions in the North and spontaneous informal regions in the South, alongside some regional hubs and hierarchies. Globalization is less significant than the grassroots transnationalism of borderland health care.

‘Flexible bio-citizenship’ and international medical travel: Transnational mobilities for care in Asia

International medical travel (IMT) challenges the notion of health care as a responsibility of a nation-state to its citizens, tied to the territory of a nation-state. As patients travel for medical care, they invoke not territorialised notions of citizenship, but make new claims. In this article, the authors propose the term ‘flexible bio-citizenship’ that extends the notion of ‘flexible citizenship’ to describe transnational mobilities for the accumulation of biovalue. They argue that people who travel for medical care come from a variety of backgrounds, identities and circumstances for whom the physical and economic ability to travel and cross borders is a form of flexible social capital enabling them to access levels of care otherwise inaccessible to them. The article explores the implications upon citizenship for a diverse range of people who travel for their health care: from highly mobile cosmopolitan professional expatriate workers, regional border crossers, migrant workers, those who cannot afford care at home, patients whose status makes treatments unavailable, and outsourced patients forced to travel for care. Their mobility allows them to gain biovalue but also alters their citizenship relationships and perspectives.

Demand for International Medical Travel to the USA

The USA has developed a global reputation for providing high-quality, cutting-edge medical care, and individuals from across the world travel to the country to receive care for complex medical conditions. Beyond this goal of higher quality of care, however, very little is known about the motivational patterns influencing medical travellers' decision making, including the extent to which existing tourism theory and forecasting models apply to this specialized group. The present study seeks to contribute to the knowledge base by developing and testing a macro-level model of international medical travel to the USA. Using country-level data from the US Department of Commerce, World Health Organization, World Bank and Central Intelligence Agency, a two-part regression analysis was used to assess factors associated with the presence and volume of inbound medical travel by country of origin. The results indicate that travel time and out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure are significant predictors of inbound medical tourism from a given country, and travel time, travel cost, services trade and the number of outbound travellers are significant predictors of the total volume of inbound medical travellers by country. The results are discussed in the light of existing tourism research, and guidance for hospitals, policy makers and the tourism industry is provided on where to target resources for developing relationships with providers and payers abroad.

Are patients with preoperative air travel at higher risk for venous thromboembolism following primary total hip and knee arthroplasty?

The advent of international medical travel has resulted in many patients travelling abroad to seek medical attention at foreign institutions. However, it is not known whether long-haul flights further increase the risk of VTE in patients who are to receive a joint replacement. We performed this retrospective cohort study to analyze if patients with preoperative air travel with a flight time more than four hours are at higher risk for VTE development following total knee or total hip athroplasty (THA) compared to patients without preoperative travel. Between January 2007 and December 2012, 245 patients were treated with either a primary total knee arthroplasty (TKA) or total hip arthroplasty (THA) with preoperative air travel with a flight time more than 4 hours at our institution. One-hundred fifty five patients (n= 87 THA and n= 68 TKA) out of 245 patients met the inclusion and exclusion criteria and were included in this study. A total of 187 patients (n= 92 THA and n= 95 TKA) without bus, air or car travel longer than 30 minutes met the inclusion and exclusion criteria and were included in this study as controls. Patients with preoperative air travel were not at higher risk for VTE development compared to patients without preoperative air travel following TKA (HR = 0.95; 95%CI = 0.14-6.52). Gender (HR = 0.41; 95%CI = 0.05-3.56) and age (HR = 3.77; 95%CI = 0.63-22.37) did not influence the VTE development in TKA patients. Our study results show that preoperative air travel do not further increase the risk of VTE after TKA and THA.

Neoliberal governance and international medical travel in Malaysia

Neoliberal governance and international medical travel in Malaysia

Public Roles in Developing the Health Travel Sector

The much-publicized emergence of international health tourism and medical travel (the term ‘health travel’ is adopted herein) often appeals to governments seeking new ways to stimulate economic development and relieve pressure on public budgets for the delivery of health care. With this expansion of activity come questions regarding effective steps governments can take to develop health travel in the national interest. Considerations for public development of health travel are described, with the focus on planning challenges specific to the sub-sector. These include overcoming deficiencies in external market information (Type I challenges) and developing health travel in ways that improve local health care capabilities and benefit local patients (Type 2 challenges). A hierarchy of goals and their interrelationships are described, and a continuum of roles governments that can adopt in supporting the development of health travel are presented. The experiences of select countries are reviewed that assess progression along the continuum, and lessons to date are summarized.

Towards a rigorous conceptual framework for examining international medical travel

The medical tourism literature suggests that patients choose to consume healthcare services abroad in order to take advantage of medical treatment not available locally, of treatment of a higher standard or provided at reduced cost, as well as of the tourism opportunities offered by the chosen destination. In departing from the medical tourism literature, this paper consists of a critical literature review organised to establish what is known about international medical travel, hence, contributing towards the development of a more rigorous conceptual framework for this type of travel. Based on secondary data, tourism connotations are distinguished from international travel for medical purposes, since the design and implementation of effective marketing strategies aimed at the medical tourism market are challenged by a lack of understanding of the drivers and impediments that influence patients' decisions when demand is for medical treatment. Attention is given to the definition of medical travel, its product, consumer and destination success factors. Consideration of the nature of the medical travel product suggests that relational strategies may be justified. Recommendations are made for further research.

More than medical tourism: lessons from Indonesia and Malaysia on South–South intra-regional medical travel

While scholars increasingly acknowledge that most contemporary international medical travel comprises South–South flows, these have gone curiously unexamined. Rather, policy, scholarly and media attention focuses predominantly on North–South flows of ‘medical tourists’. However, this focus diverts attention from the actual and potential impacts of South–South intra-regional medical travel flows on both their source and receiving contexts. As such, we present findings from a study examining South–South intra-regional medical travellers' motivations, preparations and practices to better understand the social, economic and political situations that condition them and their effects on the destinations that receive them. Our study of Indonesian medical travellers pursuing health care in Malaysia draws on 35 semi-structured interviews with Indonesian patients, their companions, medical staff and agents in both countries. From this, we suggest that South–South medical travellers' diverse socio-economic conditions shape decision-making and spending behaviour relative to treatment, accommodation and transport choices as well as length of stay. We identify ways in which informal economies and social care networks sustain the formal medical travel industry. Finally, we observe how medical travel increasingly serves as a means through which chronic and everyday health needs are met through temporary, visa-free intra-regional movement.

Solidarity by demand? Exit and voice in international medical travel – The case of Indonesia

Globally, more patients are intentionally travelling abroad as consumers for medical care. However, while scholars have begun to examine international medical travel's (IMT) impacts on the people and places that receive medical travellers, study of its impacts on medical travellers' home contexts has been negligible and largely speculative. While proponents praise IMT's potential to make home health systems more responsive to the needs of market-savvy healthcare consumers, critics identify it as a way to further de-politicise the satisfaction of healthcare needs. This article draws from work on political consumerism, health advocacy and social movements to argue for a reframing of IMT not as a 'one-off' statement about or an event external to struggles over access, rights and recognition within medical travellers' home health systems but rather as one of a range of critical forms of on-going engagement embedded within these struggles. To do this, the limited extant empirical work addressing domestic impacts of IMT is reviewed and a case study of Indonesian medical travel to Malaysia is presented. The case study material draws from 85 interviews undertaken in 2007–08 and 2012 with Indonesian and Malaysian respondents involved in IMT as care recipients, formal and informal care-providers, intermediaries, promoters and policy-makers. Evidence from the review and case study suggests that IMT may effect political and social change within medical travellers' home contexts at micro and macro levels by altering the perspectives, habits, expectations and accountability of, and complicity among, medical travellers, their families, communities, formal and informal intermediaries, and medical providers both within and beyond the container of the nation-state. Impacts are conditioned by the ideological foundations underpinning home political and social systems, the status of a medical traveller's ailment or therapy, and the existence of organised support for recognition and management of these in the home context.

En route: Transport and Embodiment in International Medical Travel Journeys Between Indonesia and Malaysia

International medical travel is increasingly major business. Using Indonesian patient-consumers’ transport experiences in the pursuit of private medical care in Malaysia, this study explores how transport operators and infrastructure are responding and adjusting to the embodied specificities of the growing market’s access and travel needs. In offering faster and more frequent linkages, they have both expanded the physical and geo-political scope and increased the immediacy of care provision. This underscores the value of examining how the mobile spaces of transport common to international medical travel actively intersect with, blur and re-articulate diverse understandings of ill-health and impairment, care and subjectivity.

Medical travel facilitators: connecting patients and providers in a globalized world

International medical travel is a rapidly developing phenomenon that promises patients cheap and affordable medical care abroad. However, the logistics of making travel arrangements, selecting a medical provider, and evaluating quality can be a daunting task for even the most experienced traveler. At the nexus, connecting patients and providers are medical travel facilitators (MTFs), who are individuals and companies that market foreign medical care to patients. While the services that MTFs offer vary, they primarily focus on making foreign medical care more accessible to patients through commodifying the medical experience and providing logistical support. Although they are an important part of international medical travel they are often overlooked, especially along the US/Mexico border. This paper contributes to the discussion on medical travel by focusing on MTFs and the methods they employ through (1) discussing the characteristics and logistical challenges of medical travel; (2) identifying the different types of medical travel facilitators; and (3) addressing how MTFs remake patients into consumers. Findings suggest that while MTFs operate on a variety of different scales, and market their services differently, they all emphasize the consumer experience through advertising quality assurances and logistical support.