An industry perspective on Canadian patients' involvement in Medical Tourism: implications for public health

Abstract

BackgroundThe medical tourism industry, which assists patients with accessing non-emergency medical care abroad, has grown rapidly in recent years. A lack of reliable data about medical tourism makes it difficult to create policy, health system, and public health responses to address the associated risks and shortcomings, such as spread of infectious diseases, associated with this industry. This article addresses this knowledge gap by analyzing interviews conducted with Canadian medical tourism facilitators in order to understand Canadian patients' involvement in medical tourism and the implications of this involvement for public health.MethodsSemi-structured phone interviews were conducted with 12 medical facilitators from 10 companies in 2010. An exhaustive recruitment strategy was used to identify interviewees. Questions focused on business dimensions, information exchange, medical tourists' decision-making, and facilitators' roles in medical tourism. Thematic analysis was undertaken following data collection.ResultsFacilitators helped their Canadian clients travel to 11 different countries. Estimates of the number of clients sent abroad annually varied due to demand factors. Facilitators commonly worked with medical tourists aged between 40 and 60 from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds who faced a number of potential barriers including affordability, fear of the unfamiliar, and lack of confidence. Medical tourists who chose not to use facilitators' services were thought to be interested in saving money or have cultural/familial connections to the destination country. Canadian doctors were commonly identified as barriers to securing clients.ConclusionsNo effective Canadian public health response to medical tourism can treat medical tourists as a unified group with similar motivations for engaging in medical tourism and choosing similar mechanisms for doing so. This situation may be echoed in other countries with patients seeking care abroad. Therefore, a call for a comprehensive public health response to medical tourism and its effects should be coupled with a clear understanding that medical tourism is a highly diverse practice. This response must also acknowledge facilitators as important stakeholders in medical tourism.

What Is Driving the Growth in Medical Tourism?

“…These providers stated that cost savings, quality of care, experience and reputation of the provider, accreditation, distance and ease of travel, and decreased waiting times are primary motivators for consumers to travel to another country for medical services. Johnston, Crooks, Adams, Snyder, and Kingsbury (2011) interviewed medical tourism service providers in Canada. These Canadian providers stated that their customers were mostly motivated by services not being available in Canada, waiting lists, and costs, in that order.…”

UK medical tourists in Thailand: they are not who you think they are

“…A number of studies have focused on the medical tourism industry and examined specific aspects of this, including communication and marketing [2,7,8] and practices of different kinds of providers of services [9,10]. Yet, information about the effects of such travel on individuals and recipient health systems is still limited [5,11-13].…”

Medical tourism service quality: finally some empirical findings

“…York (2008) puts the estimate at between 50,000 and 500,000; while the Deloitte Report (2008) estimated 750,000 Americans went abroad for medical care in 2007, and the figure was expected to increase to 1.6 million by 2012. Even Canadian patients are seeking healthcare services abroad, and the number is increasing each year (Johnston, Crooks, Adams, Snyder, & Kingsbury, 2011). The province of Ontario, Canada, for example saw a 450% increase from 2001 to 2008 in the number of those reimbursed for out-of-country medical treatment (Hopkins, Labonte, Runnels, & Packer, 2010).…”