Medical Tourism Research Survey Report

The practice of traveling to a foreign country to attain medical services continues to grow as a global phenomenon. Patients around the world are seeking international healthcare solutions to address prevailing issues with cost, quality, and access. The Medical Tourism Association (MTA) has worked with The George Washington University to address information gaps in the medical tourism industry through its most recent 2013 Medical Tourism Survey. The Medical Tourism Association is also committed to raising consumer awareness of international healthcare options, and has specific initiatives designed to educate and increase the number of consumers who travel for healthcare.

Health and Wellness Tourism takes an innovative look at this rapidly growing sector of today¿s thriving tourism industry. This book examines the range of motivations that drive this diverse sector of tourists, the products that are being developed to meet their needs and the management implications of these developments. A wide range of international case studies illustrate the multiple aspects of the industry and new and emerging trends including spas, medical wellness, life-coaching, meditation, festivals, pilgrimage and yoga retreats. The authors also evaluate marketing and promotional strategies and assess operational and management issues in the context of health and wellness tourism. This text includes a number of features to reinforce theory for advanced students of hospitality, leisure and tourism and related disciplines.

"Appendix F_Nonresearch Evidence Appraisal Tool"--"Appendix G_Individual Evidence Summary Tool"--"Appendix H_Synthesis Process and Recommendations Tool" -- "Appendix I_Action Planning Tool" -- "Appendix J_Dissemination Tool

Patients Beyond Borders is the first comprehensive, easy-to-understand guide to medical tourism. Impartial and extensively researched, it is filled with authoritative and accessible advice - carefully culled from hundreds of resources around the world. Whether you're seeking dental work, heart surgery, orthopedics, cosmetic surgery, neurosurgery, or LASIK eye repair, Patients Beyond Borders is your best way to become an informed health traveler and get started on your medical travel journey.

This paper studies the factors that influence an American's decision to seek medical treatment outside the United States, known as "medical tourism." Street-intercept sampling was conducted in eight urban and rural locations in North Carolina in three stages between June 2010 and March 2012. Respondents provided 597 samples, which included socio-economic data and data about their attitudes toward medical tourism. By means of principal components analysis, the attitude data were reduced to three factors - risk, social-related, and vacation. The paper tests several hypotheses about Americans' motivation to use medical tourism by regressing these three factors to thirteen health-related, travel-related, and socio-economic variables. Among the paper's major findings are: (1) The Medicare recipients are more sensitive to risk factors than holders of other insurance types but they are less sensitive to social-related factors than their counterparts; (2) the middle income groups are more motivated by risk factors than the lower income or the higher income groups but they are less motivated by social-related factors than the two extreme income earners; (3) in contrast, the Blacks are less sensitive than other ethnic groups to risk factors but are more sensitive than others to social-related factors; (4) the older consumers are more likely than the younger ones to be motivated by social-related factors to travel for treatment, and surprisingly, the young adults are more motivated by risk factors than other older age groups; (5) the single respondents are less motivated by social-related factors to travel than other marital status; (6) the less educated consumers are less motivated by risk or social-related factors than the well-educated. Medical tourism has the potential to ease the strain on the healthcare systems of developed countries and to restrain healthcare inflation. How well it does this will depend on how policy makers address these factors.

Western patients are increasingly travelling to developing countries for health care and developing countries are increasingly offering their skills and facilities to paying foreign customers. The potential and implications of this international trade in medical services is explored in this book through analysis of the market.

The era of globalization allows for more connectivity between nations and cultures. This increase in international association gives citizens more availability to take advantage of opportunities in other nations, such as medical assistance and accompanying services. Current Issues and Emerging Trends in Medical Tourism focuses on the emerging phenomena of international travel by patients in search of improved healthcare services and treatment, wellness programs, and complementary recreational activities. Including extensive coverage and case studies focusing on patient mobility and new opportunities for health services across borders, this authoritative reference source is essential to the needs of healthcare providers, nonprofit organizations, students, and medical professionals seeking relevant research on the relationship between global travel and access to healthcare. This publication features innovative, research-based chapters spanning the spectrum of medical travel issues including, but not limited to, customer perceptions, ethical considerations, reproductive medicine, social media use, family caregivers, organ transplants, human trafficking, and surrogacy concerns.