Many people may never think of Medical Tourism for their treatment but is there any harm in trying it? It will be surprising to know that most of the countries are emerging as most preferred medical tourism destinations with very favorable characteristics. A country like Thailand is known to be advanced and India is known for cost benefit along with the better quality of treatment.
In order to outperform as a country and ensure success in medical tourism, the below-mentioned points should be considered:
- Focus on quality and standard
- Extent of understanding over patient journey
- Overall understanding of medical tourism strategy
Many countries fail in handling above three areas and hence medical tourism is found to be not so attractive for the world.
1. Focus on quality and standard
In the last decadea country like Malaysia has seen good annual growth rate in revenue through medical travel while they have good arrival numbers of medical travelers. Malaysia is experiencing impressive numbers when it comes to medical tourism. However, there have been few instances of negative experiences and negative reviews as well by the patients in regards to poor care and bad practices in the hospitals.
Ministry of Health is strict about the regulations and medical practitioners work under those guidelines. They are very particular about the services and products that can be sold by any healthcare service provider. Private Medical practitionersfollow global standards and latest technology to keep ahead in the competitive world.Due to such things, trust and confidence are built among the patients from across the globe. This helps in maintaining the reputation of the provider as well as the country.
2. Extent of understanding over patient journey
Patient journey is very important when we talk about medical tourism. It is more than just treating the patient. Most of the countries come up with 360 degree approach that helps patients in taking complete advantage of travel and treatment without any hassles. Patient journey needs to be carefully handled like their travel, stay, hospital experience right from landing in the country till moving back. It is all about their complete experience.
If it is about serving local patients then we should talk more about the patient treatment and experience but if it is about international patients and medical tourism destinations, healthcare providers should think more about the customer journey and experience. It includes both pre and post treatment activities.
3. Overall understanding of medical tourism strategy
Medical tourism strategy is very important to boost the number of international patients in any country. There are a few countries managing it very well. A few countries use straight method of promoting the services in overseas countriesrather than focusing on the strategy. It is believed that there can be boost in the numbers if you visit the exhibitions, tradeshows, trade fairs and establish relations with the tourism agents and facilitators. These quick acts can surely help you get the patients from across the globe but it is also important to provide them good overall experience.
So, medical tourism is known to be a complex network of the niche market. Medical tourism strategy should include all the aspects and should clearly define the products or services as per the target country. You should properly analyze the target market and understand clearly their needs. You should know culture, people, healthcare industry and medical needs of the target country before targeting that country with your products and services in medical tourism.
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