IMTJadmin - 07/03/2008 11:27
At the Second Medical Travel Conference in Washington, December 2007, “Global healthcare” was preferred as a less polarising term than “Medical travel”. The reason? To avoid the perception within the US that medical travel is a one-way funnel extracting patients from the US.
Over 800 industry participants were present at the Second Medical Travel Conference this week in Washington DC and one message was clear.
Organised by Transmarx, LLC, the conference brought together facilities such as Parkway from Singapore and Wockhardt from India together with medical travel agents such as Taj Medical Group and Planet Hospital. Attending were medical centres, intermediaries, employers, consultants, hospitals from the United States (mostly academic attendants), as well as brokers and third party administrators.
Despite the success of the conference, CEO of organiser Transmarx Skip Brickley says that future events will reflect the polarising effect of the terms ‘medical travel’ and 'medical tourism’
“This industry is starting to take footing," he says. "But for it to move forward we need to get away from the term ‘medical tourism’ and focus on the globalisation of healthcare. At the moment the term is a polarising one in the US market, and we need to focus on the global opportunities for all stakeholders so that people understand that it’s not just a one way funnel in which people extract patients from the US. Medical travel is a component within the globalisation of healthcare, but we want it to be as inclusive as possible. We need to be able to get stakeholders to come out and look at this at an opportunity. It is inevitable, it has happened in every other industry and so they should engage, otherwise there will be barriers thrown up by the medical institutions who need to be involved in this.”
Brickley states that “…even some of the international players are looking to get away from that term. So our focus will be on the global opportunities and so connect industry participants to “a world of opportunities both ways. It’s a two-way street.”
The next event taking place in Las Vegas, May 5-7 is the National Conference on Healthcare Consumerism which will focus on employer strategies and solutions. It will look at innovative strategies on how to reduce healthcare costs and improve employees health.
“We will connect it with consumer engagement, looking at Health 3.0 and the next generation of connecting to the consumer, and then the globalisation of healthcare. The new name of the conference will be The Globalisation of Healthcare Summit and we will focus on solutions, showcasing providers which enable global healthcare, connect US corporations and companies that sell global plans for overseas healthcare services, bring the US to the table and educate them on the opportunities on the global healthcare model, and continue to try and remove the issues of quality and liability as a barrier to global healthcare.
http://www.consumerhealthworld.com/chw07/default.aspx
