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help required in medical tourism project
This is a discussion on help required in medical tourism project within the Final 100 Mark Project forums, part of the Projects HUB for Management Students ( MBA Projects and dissertations / BMS Projects / BBA Projects category; Hey,
I am doing the 100 mks project in medical tourism........i need some data.........plzzz help if u can......thnks
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Re: help required in medical tourism project -
July 24th, 2006
humm good topic and some one has made a project on the same also plz surf the site properly iam sure u will find something i guess u should look out in upload/download projects section
lll
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Re: help required in medical tourism project -
July 24th, 2006
Quote:
Originally Posted by pramod_iyer87
Hey,
I am doing the 100 mks project in medical tourism........i need some data.........plzzz help if u can......thnks
Hey Pramod, can u give us a brief idea bout the topic and also what u had collected
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Re: help required in medical tourism project -
July 24th, 2006
some article c if it helps u.font size may make u read it wid sm interest i guess so Medical tourism growing worldwide
Futurist Marvin Cetron, founder and president of Forecasting International, serves on the advisory board of UD’s Department of Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management.
11:34 a.m., July 25, 2005--Falling ill while abroad seems like the worst sort of traveling nightmare. Yet, for growing numbers of travelers, the lure of combining affordable medical care with attentive room service is a chief draw for packing a suitcase and boarding a plane.
Here, UDaily previews excerpts from an article by Frederick J. DeMicco, ARAMARK Chair in Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management and department chairperson, and Marvin Cetron, founder and president of Forecasting International, on the growing trend of medical tourism. In Q&A format, both experts share abridged portions of their views from an article soon to be published in the FIU (Florida International University) Hospitality Review.
DeMicco and Cetron, along with Owen Davies, a consultant for Forecasting International, also have coauthored a recently published book on tourism trends titled, Hospitality 2010: The Future of Hospitality and Travel.
Medical tourists have good cause to seek out care beyond the United States for many reasons. In some regions of the world, state-of-the-art medical facilities are hard to come by, if they exist at all; in other countries, the public health-care system is so overburdened that it can take years to get needed care. In Britain and Canada, for instance, the waiting period for a hip replacement can be a year or more, while in Bangkok or Bangalore, a patient can be in the operating room the morning after getting off a plane.
For many medical tourists, though, the real attraction is price. The cost of surgery in India, Thailand or South Africa can be one-tenth of what it is in the United States or Western Europe, and sometimes even less. A heart-valve replacement that would cost $200,000 or more in the U.S., for example, goes for $10,000 in India--and that includes round-trip airfare and a brief vacation package. Similarly, a metal-free dental bridge worth $5,500 in the U.S. costs $500 in India, a knee replacement in Thailand with six days of physical therapy costs about one-fifth of what it would in the States, and Lasik eye surgery worth $3,700 in the U.S. is available in many other countries for only $730. Cosmetic surgery savings are even greater: A full facelift that would cost $20,000 in the U.S. runs about $1,250 in South Africa.
The savings sound very attractive, but a good new hip and a nice new face don’t seem like the sort of things anyone would want to bargain with. How does the balance of savings versus risk pay off in terms of success rates?
Inferior medical care would not be worth having at any price, and some skeptics warn that Third World surgery cannot possibly be as good as that available in the United States. In fact, there have been cases of botched plastic surgery, particularly from Mexican clinics in the days before anyone figured out what a gold mine cheap, high-quality care could be for the developing countries.
Yet, the hospitals and clinics that cater to the tourist market often are among the best in the world, and many are staffed by physicians trained at major medical centers in the United States and Europe.
Bangkok’s Bumrundgrad hospital has more than 200 surgeons who are board-certified in the United States, and one of Singapore’s major hospitals is a branch of the prestigious Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. In a field where experience is as important as technology, Escorts Heart Institute and Research Center in Delhi and Faridabad, India, performs nearly 15,000 heart operations every year, and the death rate among patients during surgery is only 0.8 percent--less than half that of most major hospitals in the United States.
In some countries, clinics are backed by sophisticated research infrastructures as well. India is among the world’s leading countries for biotechnology research, while both India and South Korea are pushing ahead with stem cell research at a level approached only in Britain. In many foreign clinics, too, the doctors are supported by more registered nurses per patient than in any Western facility, and some clinics provide single-patient rooms that resemble guestrooms in four-star hotels, with a nurse dedicated to each patient 24 hours a day.
Frederick J. DeMicco, ARAMARK Chair in Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management and department chairperson
Add to this the fact that some clinics assign patients a personal assistant for the posthospital recovery period and throw in a vacation incentive as well, and the deal gets even more attractive. Additionally, many Asian airlines offer frequent-flyer miles to ease the cost of returning for follow-up visits.
How is the medical tourism trend being tracked and what trends, if any, do gathered statistics show?Ten years ago, medical tourism was hardly large enough to be noticed. Today, more than 250,000 patients per year visit Singapore alone--nearly half of them from the Middle East. This year, approximately half a million foreign patients will travel to India for medical care, whereas in 2002, the number was only 150,000.
In monetary terms, experts estimate that medical tourism could bring India as much as $2.2 billion per year by 2012. Argentina, Costa Rica, Cuba, Jamaica, South Africa, Jordan, Malaysia, Hungary, Latvia and Estonia all have broken into this lucrative market as well, or are trying to do so, and more countries join the list every year.
What sort of trends in medical tourism do you foresee in the near future?
Some important trends guarantee that the market for medical tourism will continue to expand in the years ahead. By 2015, the health of the vast Baby Boom generation will have begun its slow, final decline, and, with more than 220 million Boomers in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, this represents a significant market for inexpensive, high-quality medical care.
Medical tourism will be particularly attractive in the United States, where an estimated 43 million people are without health insurance and 120 million without dental coverage--numbers that are both likely to grow. Patients in Britain, Canada and other countries with long waiting lists for major surgery will be just as eager to take advantage of foreign health-care options.
Which countries are significant leaders in the medical tourism industry?
Major centers for medical tourism are Bangkok and Phuket, with six medical facilities in Bangkok boasting hospital accreditation from the United States.
As in most tourist-oriented medical communities, the major attractions are cosmetic surgery and dental treatments. However, eye surgery, kidney dialysis and organ transplantation also are among the most common procedures sought by medical vacationers in Thailand.
Cetron and DeMicco, along with Owen Davies, a consultant for Forecasting International, coauthored the recently published ‘Hospitality 2010: The Future of Hospitality and Travel.’
For a few patients, Phuket has another attraction as well: Bangkok Phuket Hospital is the premier place to go for sex-change surgery. In fact, that is one of the top 10 procedures for which patients visit Thailand.
India is a relative newcomer to medical tourism, but is quickly catching up with Thailand, and recent estimates indicate that the number of foreign patients is growing there by 30 percent each year.
Looking ahead, are there any medical technologies or procedures in which particular countries excel?
India has top-notch centers for open-heart surgery, pediatric heart surgery, hip and knee replacement, cosmetic surgery, dentistry, bone marrow transplants and cancer therapy, and virtually all of India’s clinics are equipped with the latest electronic and medical diagnostic equipment.
Unlike many of its competitors in medical tourism, India also has the technological sophistication and infrastructure to maintain its market niche, and Indian pharmaceuticals meet the stringent requirements of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Additionally, India’s quality of care is up to American standards, and some Indian medical centers even provide services that are uncommon elsewhere. For example, hip surgery patients in India can opt for a hip-resurfacing procedure, in which damaged bone is scraped away and replaced with chrome alloy--an operation that costs less and causes less post-operative trauma than the traditional replacement procedure performed in the U.S.
For North American patients, Costa Rica is the chosen destination for inexpensive, high-quality medical care without a trans-Pacific flight, and it is the particular mecca for westerners seeking plastic surgery.
South Africa also draws many cosmetic surgery patients, especially from Europe, and many South African clinics offer packages that include personal assistants, visits with trained therapists, trips to top beauty salons, post-operative care in luxury hotels and safaris or other vacation incentives. Because the South African rand has such a long-standing low rate on the foreign-exchange market, medical tourism packages there tend to be perpetual bargains as well.
Additionally, Argentina ranks high for plastic surgery, and Hungary draws large numbers of patients from Western Europe and the U.S. for high-quality cosmetic and dental procedures that cost half of what they would in Germany and America.
Lastly, Dubai--a destination already known as a luxury vacation paradise--is scheduled to open the Dubai Healthcare City by 2010. Situated on the Red Sea, this clinic will be the largest international medical center between Europe and Southeast Asia. Slated to include a new branch of the Harvard Medical School, it also may be the most prestigious foreign clinic on the horizon.
Article by Becca Hutchinson
Photos by Kathy F. Atkinson and Jack Buxbaum
Re: help required in medical tourism project -
July 24th, 2006
some more
THE most recent trend in privatisation of health services is medical tourism, which is gaining prominence in developing countries. Globalisation has promoted a consumerist culture, thereby promoting goods and services that can feed the aspirations arising from this culture. This has had its effect in the health sector too, with the emergence of a private sector that thrives by servicing a small percentage of the population that has the ability to “buy” medical care at the rates at which the “high end” of the private medical sector provides such care. This has changed the character of the medical care sector, with the entry of the corporate sector. Corporate run institutions are seized with the necessity to maximise profits and expand their coverage. These objectives face a constraint in the form of the relatively small size of the population in developing countries that can afford services offered by such institutions. In this background, corporate interests in the Medical Care sector are looking for opportunities that go beyond the limited domestic “market” for high cost medical care. This is the genesis of the “medical tourism” industry.
MEDICAL TOURISM AS AN INDUSTRY
Medical tourism can be broadly defined as provision of ‘cost effective’ private medical care in collaboration with the tourism industry for patients needing surgical and other forms of specialized treatment. This process is being facilitated by the corporate sector involved in medical care as well as the tourism industry - both private and public.
In many developing countries it is being actively promoted by the government’s official policy. India’s National Health policy 2002, for example, says: “To capitalise on the comparative cost advantage enjoyed by domestic health facilities in the secondary and tertiary sector, the policy will encourage the supply of services to patients of foreign origin on payment. The rendering of such services on payment in foreign exchange will be treated as ‘deemed exports’ and will be made eligible for all fiscal incentives extended to export earnings”. The formulation draws from recommendations that the corporate sector has been making in India and specifically from the “Policy Framework for Reforms in Health Care”, drafted by the prime minister’s Advisory Council on Trade and Industry, headed by Mukesh Ambani and Kumaramangalam Birla.
GROWTH OF THE MEDICAL TOURISM INDUSTRY
The countries where medical tourism is being actively promoted include Greece, South Africa, Jordan, India, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore. India is a recent entrant into medical tourism. According to a study by McKinsey and the Confederation of Indian Industry, medical tourism in India could become a $1 billion business by 2012. The report predicts that: “By 2012, if medical tourism were to reach 25 per cent of revenues of private up-market players, up to Rs 10,000 crore will be added to the revenues of these players”. The Indian government predicts that India’s $17-billion-a-year health-care industry could grow 13 per cent in each of the next six years, boosted by medical tourism, which industry watchers say is growing at 30 per cent annually.
In India, the Apollo group alone has so far treated 95,000 international patients, many of whom are of Indian origin. Apollo has been a forerunner in medical tourism in India and attracts patients from Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The group has tied up with hospitals in Mauritius, Tanzania, Bangladesh and Yemen besides running a hospital in Sri Lanka, and managing a hospital in Dubai.
Another corporate group running a chain of hospitals, Escorts, claims it has doubled its number of overseas patients - from 675 in 2000 to nearly 1,200 this year. Recently, the Ruby Hospital in Kolkata signed a contract with the British insurance company, BUPA. The management hopes to get British patients from the queue in the National Health Services soon. Some estimates say that foreigners account for 10 to 12 per cent of all patients in top Mumbai hospitals despite roadblocks like poor aviation connectivity, poor road infrastructure and absence of uniform quality standards.
Analysts say that as many as 150,000 medical tourists came to India last year. However, the current market for medical tourism in India is mainly limited to patients from the Middle East and South Asian economies. Some claim that the industry would flourish even without Western medical tourists. Afro-Asian people spend as much as $20 billion a year on health care outside their countries – Nigerians alone spend an estimated $1 billion a year. Most of this money would be spent in Europe and America, but it is hoped that this would now be increasingly directed to developing countries with advanced facilities.
PROMOTION OF MEDICAL TOURISM
The key “selling points” of the medical tourism industry are its “cost effectiveness” and its combination with the attractions of tourism. The latter also uses the ploy of selling the “exotica” of the countries involved as well as the packaging of health care with traditional therapies and treatment methods.
Price advantage is, of course, a major selling point. The slogan, thus is, “First World treatment’ at Third World prices”. The cost differential across the board is huge: only a tenth and sometimes even a sixteenth of the cost in the West. Open-heart surgery could cost up to $70,000 in Britain and up to $150,000 in the US; in India’s best hospitals it could cost between $3,000 and $10,000. Knee surgery (on both knees) costs 350,000 rupees ($7,700) in India; in Britain this costs £10,000 ($16,950), more than twice as much. Dental, eye and cosmetic surgeries in Western countries cost three to four times as much as in India.
The price advantage is however offset today for patients from the developed countries by concerns regarding standards, insurance coverage and other infrastructure. This is where the tourism and medical industries are trying to pool resources, and also putting pressure on the government. We shall turn to their implications later.
In India the strong tradition of traditional systems of health care in Kerala, for example, is utilised. Kerala Ayurveda centres have been established at multiple locations in various metro cities, thus highlighting the advantages of Ayurveda in health management. The health tourism focus has seen Kerala participate in various trade shows and expos wherein the advantages of this traditional form of medicine are showcased.
A generic problem with medical tourism is that it reinforces the medicalised view of health care. By promoting the notion that medical services can be bought off the shelf from the lowest priced provider anywhere in the globe, it also takes away the pressure from the government to provide comprehensive health care to all its citizens. It is a deepening of the whole notion of health care that is being pushed today which emphasises on technology and private enterprise.
The important question here is for whom is ‘cost effective’ services to be provided. Clearly the services are “cost effective” for those who can pay and in addition come from countries where medical care costs are exorbitant - because of the failure of the government to provide affordable medical care. It thus attracts only a small fraction that can pay for medical care and leaves out large sections that are denied medical care but cannot afford to pay. The demand for cost effective specialized care is coming from the developed countries where there has been a decline in public spending and rise in life expectancy and non-communicable diseases that requires specialist services.
MEDICAL TOURISM AND PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICES
Medical tourism is going to only deal with large specialist hospitals run by corporate entities. It is a myth that the revenues earned by these corporates will partly revert back to finance the public sector. There is ample evidence to show that these hospitals have not honoured the conditionalities for receiving government subsidies - in terms of treatment of a certain proportion of in patients and out patients free of cost. If anything, increased demand on private hospitals due to medical tourism may result in their expansion. If they expand then they will need more professionals, which means that they will try to woo doctors from the public sector. Even today the top specialists in corporate hospitals are senior doctors drawn the public sector. Medical tourism is likely to further devalue and divert personnel from the public sector rather than strengthen them.
Urban concentration of health care providers is a well-known fact – 59 per cent of India’s practitioners (73 per cent allopathic) are located in cities, and especially metropolitan ones. Medical tourism promotes an “internal brain drain” with more health professionals being drawn to large urban centres, and within them, to large corporate run specialty institutions.
Medical tourism is going to result in a number of demands and changes in the areas of financing and regulations. There will be a greater push for encouraging private insurance tied to systems of accreditation of private hospitals. There is a huge concern in the developed countries about the quality of care and clinical expertise in developing countries and this will push for both insurance and regulatory regimes. The potential for earning revenues through medical tourism will become an important argument for private hospitals demanding more subsidies from the government in the long run. In countries like India, the corporate private sector has already received considerable subsidies in the form of land, reduced import duties for medical equipment etc. Medical tourism will only further legitimise their demands and put pressure on the government to subsidise them even more. This is worrying because the scarce resources available for health will go into subsidising the corporate sector. It thus has serious consequences for equity and cost of services and raises a very fundamental question: why should developing countries be subsidising the health care of developed countries?
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Re: help required in medical tourism project -
July 25th, 2006
hey,
My topic is basically about the growth and potential of medical tourism in india........and am trying to illustrate with some hospitals who have special packages for foriegn tourists for medical treatement
Re: help required in medical tourism project -
July 25th, 2006
try visiting companies like elder or ajanta pharma in kandivali charkup go and try collecting some primary information from there
lll
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