Medical tourism - International Conference, Call For Paper ...

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1.0 Introduction Medical tourism refers to the many patients that are currently traveling overseas for immediate and affordable treatment. Caballero-Danell and Mugomba (2007) defines medical tourism as the pursuit of medical care abroad and simultaneously engage in more conventional forms of tourism. According to Daub’s study (as cited in Newman, 2006), medical tourism is the attempt by many Americans to save money by traveling to other countries for their medical needs. This focuses on the Americans while others define differently. Keckly and Underwood (2008) noted that medical tourism is the process of “leaving home” for treatments and care abroad or elsewhere domestically. It is an emerging phenomenon in the health care industry. In addition, according to Horowitz and Rosensweig (2007), “medical tourists” seek modern health care at affordable prices in countries at variable levels of development. Medical tourism is different from the traditional form of international medical care where patients typically journey from less developed nations to major medical centers in highly developed countries for advanced medical treatment. This means even patients from a highly developed country such as The United States can go to those developing countries such as Malaysia and its neighbours for medical treatment. In short, medical tourism is the attempt by patients to seek for a qualified and high quality medical health care at foreign countries at an affordable price or cheaper price. It does not limit to traveling to modern countries to seek for better service but most important is the affordable price with the same quality of service. This combination of surgery and tourism is a relatively new type of nonexclusive niche tourism that promises to have significant growth over the next few years. Connell (2005) found as health care costs have increased tremendously, patients in the developed world are looking overseas for medical treatment. Patients in developed countries always suffer from long waiting time. They have to take turns to wait for the medical treatment. Thus, consumers commit to travel overseas for their medical treatment. Often, consumer will also take the opportunity to be a 2
tourist in the visiting country and enjoy what it has to offer. Therefore, consumers may combine their holiday and medical care into one venture. Besides that, medical tourists seek for medical tourism because those foreign countries offer a better price with the same service provided. Patients also travel to medical tourism destinations for procedures that are not available in their own countries such as stem cell therapy for heart failure. Other reasons for medical tourism are the natural attractiveness in the foreign countries, the medical expertise and the medical quality. Horowitz and Rosensweig (2007) mentioned that medical tourism is market driven which is shaped by the complex interactions a combination of medical, economic, social and political forces. All of these are interrelated and needed to be developed in order to become a competitive medical tourism. 1.1 Background Calvin, C. and Ivy, T. (2005) mentioned medical tourism in Asia is relatively new. Medical tourism was brought on in the aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis that led private hospitals to seek alternative revenue sources. Malaysia started to be actively participating in medical tourism since 1998 with the setting up of the National Committee for The Promotion of Medical and Health Tourism. In Malaysia, the medical solutions range from traditional medicine to telemedicine. Under Malaysia’s health tourism promotion drive, there are 35 private hospitals in Malaysia which have been chosen to promote Malaysia as a health tourist destination. These 35 private hospitals are members of the Association of Private Hospitals of Malaysia (APHM). Besides that, these hospitals have been awarded the certification for internationally recognised standards for example MS 9002 or accreditation by the Malaysian Society for Quality in Health and ISO 9001 Gupta (2005). Malaysia achieved some success in establishing as a regional hub for good health care and its ability in providing state-of-the-art medical facilities and services for medical tourists (Ministry of Health). All of these successes were due to the combination of hard efforts by Association of Private Hospitals of 3
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Page 5 and 6: Malaysia attracted an estimated 300
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Page 9 and 10: Mugomba and Caballero-Danell (2006)
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Page 15 and 16: The sampling method which was writt
Page 17 and 18: 4.2 Penang Adventist Hospital Figur
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Page 27 and 28: REFERENCE Ang, E. (2009, February 1
Page 29: Lautier, M. (2008). Export of healt

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