Something to say?
Join the forum, ask us a question, or comment
on the blog

Articles and features

Let’s abandon medical tourism!

Keith Pollard from Treatment Abroad explains why the industry should abandon “medical tourism”. Is he serious? Yes. He even suggests that we should start a “Campaign Against Medical Tourism”. What is he on about? Read more....

I’ve never been a great fan of the phrase “medical tourism”. It’s confusing and doesn’t really describe what most of the industry is about. For most people (outside of the industry) medical tourism suggests that someone is combining treatment with a holiday/vacation. But in many instances, this is not the case.

Nevertheless, it has crept into common usage. Or has it....?

The preferred industry term

This week’s IMTJ news features a report from Dr Prem Jagyasi on medical tourism. One of the conclusions of the report was that that the phrase “medical tourism” is the preferred industry term. The question we need to ask is whether it is the phrase that is actually in common usage (outside of as opposed to within the industry) and whether it is the best one to use.

The report suggests that “medical tourism is a term interchangeable with ‘medical travel’, ‘health travel’ and ‘health tourism’.” It quite clearly isn’t as it means very different things to different people in different segments of the market.

As measured by “online search engine share”

The report also goes on to present the “online search engine share” of the various terms in use, stating that “medical tourism takes a 65% share in online presence.” Having checked with Dr Jagyasi, I understand that this is what they actually measured – the number of web pages that contained the various terms. Here’s an analysis of the terms included in the report based on Dr Jagyasi’s logic. (Note: I have also included “health travel” which was omitted from his report.)

Term	No of pages	Share of total
medical tourism	2,040,000	54.6%
health travel	469,000	12.6%
global healthcare	462,000	12.4%
health tourism	398,000	10.7%
medical travel	279,000	7.5%
value medical travel	47,000	1.3%
healthcare travel	41,400	1.1%
All terms	3,736,400	100.0%

Note: Data obtained from Google.com

Now...this is not “online search engine share”. It is a measure of the extent to which people use the various phrases on web pages. And who writes those pages.... people within the industry.... and those people use the phrase medical tourism.

What am I getting at? Here are some healthcare examples that illustrate the doctor-patient language gap:

Doctors and healthcare professionals talk about procedures; patients talk about their operation (or in the USA, their surgery).
Doctors and healthcare professionals talk about discharge; patients talk about going home.
Or if you want a medical (travel) example (and a true story!)...
Doctor to a diabetic patient (who has an infected foot that is going to have to be amputated): “I don't think we're going to be able to deal with this with local treatments”
Patient: “Does that mean I'm going to have to go to Los Angeles for treatment?”

The real measure of popularity and “online search engine share”

The beauty of Google is that the way that people search provides a valuable insight into how people think, how they use words and how they speak. Many companies invest heavily in analysing consumer search behaviour as it is a great predictor of behaviour.

So, a real measure of “online search engine share” is to compare how people search – what terms they use to search and how often they use them. This is a reflection of consumer and patient language rather than the terms that an industry uses on its web pages. Measuring usage of terms in this way presents a very different picture:

Term	Global searches per month	Share of total
health travel	201,000	34.2%
medical travel	165,000	28.0%
medical tourism	165,000	28.0%
health tourism	27,100	4.6%
global healthcare	22,200	3.8%
healthcare travel	8,100	1.4%
value medical travel	110	0.0%
All terms	588,510	100.0%

Note: Data obtained from Google.com

So, if we assume that the way people search on Google is an indication of the way they think... then, we should probably accept that we are working in the health travel industry, or perhaps the medical travel industry. In this analysis, medical tourism is clearly not the term in common usage, sharing second place with medical travel. In the context of “health” and “medical”, “travel” is probably a far better partner than “tourism”, and is probably far more appropriate.

The analysis also raises real questions about the taxonomy/classification of the various segments of the health travel sector. And the need for the industry to clearly define what it’s about. Now there’s a topic for a medical travel conference (...or should it be a health travel conference?). It’s worth reviewing the work done by Constantine Constantinides with his ht8 approach to segments of the medical tourism market.

So, should we start a “Campaign Against Medical Tourism”. Perhaps we should? But what do we replace it with?

HAVE YOUR SAY. SUBMIT YOUR COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE BELOW

Profile of the author

Keith Pollard is Managing Director of Intuition Communication Ltd, a web publishing business in the healthcare sector. Intuition’s sites include Private Healthcare UK, Treatment Abroad, IMTJ, Surgery Door, Doctor Internet and the Harley Street Guide. Keith is a healthcare marketer and web entrepreneur with a background in the pharmaceutical and private hospital industries. He is a regular speaker and commentator on medical tourism. He writes a regular Health Tourism Blog.

Related articles and features

Add your comments below

Comments provided below do not represent the views of IMTJ. Comments will be published "as is" and will not be edited by IMTJ staff. IMTJ is hosting these comments, and is not undertaking an editorial role in the content of these comments. However, it is editorial policy not to publish comments which have been submitted anonymously.

Use the comment submission form below

Show All Comments

This article has really hit the nail on the head as I have always consider the term " Medical Tourism" to be totally inappropriate for the nature of the actual experience. The general idea and main reason behind this exercise is to travel abroad to seek medical treatment that is either not available or too expensive, to cite 2 reasons. This also applies to the services utilized in the earlier part of this business where most people seeking overseas medical services combined with the Sun-Sea and surf experience, hence the "tourism tag" , also do so for the more affordable cost overseas.
Medical Travel or Healthcare travel suits the situation much better. So, how do we go about getting this fixed ??

Saw Chit Aung (28/08/2010 03:56:45)

Saw Chit Aung (28/08/2010 03:56:16)

A small aside on the term Medical Value Travel - there may be a trademark on the term, but it's not "arbitrary" enough to have the full protection under US trademark law, at least not yet. A company name or product can be trademarked, but the protection there is about consumer confusion, not an absolute prohibition on the use of the the term.

As an attorney in this field, I tend to use "medical travel" as the generic term in agreements mostly because I like to make a clear distinction between the medical services on the one hand and additional tourism opportunities on the other. The term "medical tourism" may not be the best term for the industry, but it's occasionally problematic in writing agreements.

Andrew Lloyd (10/08/2010 20:03:16)

Some really interesting points are being made here, and I would certainly reinforce a couple of those made above. The phrase "medical tourism" does trivialise what we do. It's a relatively immature market, so it isn't too late to change the media perception and avoid the use of "medical tourism" wherever possible. I was on BBC national radio today and hopefully didn't use it once. Nevertheless the presenter did! The point about medical travel v wellness (or health?) travel is also well made. These are very different segments of the market and can't really be covered by the all embracing term medical tourism.

Keith Pollard (10/08/2010 18:00:30)

Brilliant, Keith! I have personally never liked the term Medical Tourism! It may be applied only to travellers who go on holiday AND get minor treatments like dental & cosmetic done. According to Wiki "Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes." Majority of our patients have serious conditions and to them I am just their healthcare travel facilitator/consultant. I don't use the term much except when dealing with the press who tend to use this more :) Cross-border health travel seems more appropriate. Yes, I'm all for abandoning the term.

Rose Ann Shetty (10/08/2010 07:01:16)

I'm an attorney practicing in this area and while many of my clients do have a tourism component to their facilitation agreement, the core of the business is much more akin to business travel: get there, get done, recover, and get home. At most, folks might schedule a half day to visit an obvious tourist site on their way back to the airport. I tend to use "medical travel" as the generic in my agreements.

Andrew Lloyd (09/08/2010 19:53:40)

Keith is correct. None of us in the industry,whether as a facilitator or as a provider of Medical facilities would want to use the phrase Medical Tourism. Medical Value Travel would have been appropriate but it appears the term is patented in the US.
This phrase was probably coined by some Travel agent .I will not be surprised if some one comes up with a tacky "Surgical Tourism "or diabetic tourism,denoting and somehow relating it to travel research in that particular disease. Guru Prasad,Bangalore

Guru Prasad (09/08/2010 13:29:20)

Interesting discussion. I agree with Rudy above who suggests that key to this is re-educating the media. Certainly, in the UK, the perception has been that anything that is provided outside of the NHS is treated with suspicion (however innacurate that view) - particularly if it is termed "medical tourism", which is seen as somehow frivolous and not something that health systems should recognise (or fund) as a legitimate patient choice. Things are changing - albeit slowly - largely due to the accrual of patients rights in a European context but the public and media understanding of this area is not very mature.

Rob Dickman (09/08/2010 11:19:27)

Looks like the consensus is that “medical tourism” is not the right term. I think most in the industry has hit that realization a long time ago, but in the fervor of the media probably most are guilty of riding that train. Getting rid of this term would be interesting, and at the same time having different terms for medical vs. wellness travel. This is not elitism, but the fact these two industries have completely different patient needs, and are merely tangential.

Even though the statistics are not mine, perhaps we can try to shed some light on them. My guess on the disparity between the number of web pages and the number of searches is simply because of the number of sites out there that automatically pick up and repeat content from PR sites and RSS feeds. These sites are programmed to look for trending topics, and since these “automatic” sites are relatively new, the most popular trending topic they have picked up on in this space is “medical tourism”. Point being, I believe this statistic is misleading, but not through the author's intent.

Next, the monthly searches, which is the real meat: I think the real story here is not in the numbers, but in the trend over time. There is a big downwards trend in “health travel” since 2004, and a slight downward trend in “medical travel”. However, the increase trend for “medical tourism” is only slight, so it leads me to wonder if all of the searches are being cannibalized. But then my thoughts on it are: of course – patients are looking for a procedure, a doctor or a clinic/hospital, not “medical tourism”. People just need a term to conceptualize the industry, they are not searching for the industry. The name can be changed in people's minds, but it will be a battle at this point, even with BBC's & CNN's assistance.

Scott Minteer (09/08/2010 06:31:07)

'medical tourism'- two words that has opposite connotation. Medical is a term that popularly relates to sickness(not well;no capacity to enjoy; denoting a sad atmosphere; no smiles; etc.) whereas tourism is a term commonly relating to enjoyment; capacity to see, experience, feel the attractiveness and excitement of the area. Therefore, 'medical tourism' is a mismatch word- confusing.

Jene Parilla (09/08/2010 01:56:58)

>>>, I wonder how Keith came to the conclusion that this is the way patients think......how do you know that this is the phrase that people actually use in their searches......Also how do you estimate the monthly number of searches in Google?<<<

Alampallam,
We invest around $30,000 pa in various web analytics tools and services (e.g. www.hitwise.com) that enable us to track web activity and user search behaviour. In essence, every move you make on the web gets tracked by your internet service provider. These ISP's then then sell your "movements" (anonymously) to analytics companies who aggregate this data and then sell it to people like us!.

There are also free tools available that enable you get some insight into search behaviour. e.g. The Google keywords Tool. We're planning to publish an analysis of search behaviour in the medical tourism sector later this year.
Keith Pollard

Keith Pollard (08/08/2010 20:47:56)

Very good. Excellent dialogue and timing is perfect.

Megan Collins (08/08/2010 06:23:02)

Greetings from Madras Joint Replacement center. While I admit that this is a radically different thought from the way providers and facilitators think, I wonder how Keith came to the conclusion that this is the way patients think. There may well be perceptual differences but how do you know that this is the phrase that people actually use in their searches. Also how do you estimate the monthly number of searches in Google? When I tried to search for the terms used in this article, I did't come across a single clue that patients might be using this term. Instead this phrase was being used for preventive health care measures.

Alampallam Venkatachalam (08/08/2010 04:07:16)

An appropriate name for the industry would be the "Medical Travel & Tourism" industry.

The Google searches also bear this out from a statistical perspective; as they were equally weighted and would represent the stronger name when combined. Moreover, it is unclear if when people search "health travel" they are actually searching for medical procedures or for wellness services. So, the health travel phase may not necessary explain the industry in the way some have indicated. There are many subsets (specialties) to this industry and they could all fall within the broader scope of Medical Travel & Tourism.

Mahatma Davis (07/08/2010 17:53:02)

Greetings from Kuala Lumpur.
Yes, true that the terms has sort of hijacked the actual potential of the industry and it sounds bit awkward as well, due to options patient can have. Same goes with other terms which combine health/ medicine and travel. I think, being in industry we shall not be critical of these and try to use them as per our need and requirement. Important thing is that we all shall focus on developing this into a viable and lucrative field to give a new lease of life for sick and diseased, who never ever recover from the shocks after paying heavy costs or some could not even seek it, local or abroad.
I suggest, we shall not be bias of each others use of terms, but all shall help each other by using them frequently to make the industry flourish, rather educating which term is right or wrong, as redundancy is there and any of the term can comply with the true potential of the industry, at this moment, from description, marketing and awareness point of view.
Good Luck to Medical Tourism, Health Travel, Global Healthcare, treatment abroad etc.

Mubbashir Iftikhar (07/08/2010 12:52:10)

Hear, hear! Thank you, Keith ... I have been saying "Medical Travel, not Medical Tourism" since 2006 and usually say that at least once every time I present on any topic. Personally, I was using "Medical Travel" or "International Medical Travel" which is how academics like Meghann Ormond termed it. Ian's "Cross-Border Healthcare" is also good and more succinct.

Jason Yap (07/08/2010 03:37:48)

Effective today, (as a result of this article) we have changed all headings on our website to Health Travel on our menu. We too were afraid at missing out on the Google search engine, and will still have it as a keyword but will proudly use Health Travel henceforth.

We have been asked why we are not going to the MEDICAL TOURISM ASSOCIATION meeting in LA, and why we are not members. Now I can answer with more ease that it simply is not our trade association and doesn't represent what we are about. We only do about 5% of business as Medical Tourism. Most of our 500+ clients since 2003 don't go for "tourism" they go for healthcare. Period.

Maria K Todd, MHA PhD (07/08/2010 02:01:02)

I couldn't agree more that the term "Medical Tourism" is inappropriate and has been widely overused. Cross Border Healthcare, Medical Travel/Healthcare and Healthcare Abroad best describe the industry to potential Patients and Searchers.

For many Health care professional including myself the term Medical Tourism has a negative inclination. If I were a Patient, I will look for Healthcare and Treatments, not Tourism or Vacation. I refuse to use the term "Medical Tourism" on my website, my Marketing scheme and when consulting potential Patients. I find it great that Keith is finally addressing this issue.

Vera Clark (06/08/2010 19:24:18)

How do we put the genie back in the bottle? the media calls it Medical Tourism, the hospitals and facilities, like it or not, cal it that, I suppose we can all start by telling whomever that "it is called "xxx" and not medical tourism, but if the media is not persuaded then we are stuck with that moniker.

rudy rupak (06/08/2010 18:02:45)

Thanks Keith. Before reading your report today, I believed that we were stuck with “medical tourism” because of google search, but I see that I may be wrong.

The Medical Travel and Health Tourism Quality Alliance, MTQUA, has chosen to segment this industry into two groups, one for “medical travel” and the other for “health tourism”, restricting the use of “medical travel” for those patients whose lives may be at risk because of surgery or medical procedures to be undertaken away from their domicile. This is not a perfect separation between the two because cancer treatments for example are medical travel yet patients' lives are not acutely at risk.

We chose not to use “global health care” since this is a far grander and more noble a mission than what we all do, and in our minds is the purview of international global health organizations that tackle health care issues affecting the worldwide community, whether under the aegis of the United Nations, the World Health Organization or private entities like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

I think you've given us all some fresh food for thought. I like the notion of a Campaign Against Medical Tourism that could put to bed the unfortunate label of “medical tourism” despite protests by medical professionals and facilitators from the very early days that what we do has nothing to do with tourism.

Julie Munro (06/08/2010 17:22:53)