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Globalization is the language of the day, and the health careindustry is no exception. In the past, foreign patients soughtadvanced care in the United States or Western Europe. Today,the fl ow of patients is shifting. With the costs of care skyrocketingand waiting lists lengthening, patients in the U.S. and Europeare seeking care in places like India and Thailand. And peoplewho came to the U.S. for high-tech care in the past are findinginternationally renowned hospitals in Asia that offer comparableor even better care for a fraction of the price (without theheadache of post-9/11 U.S. foreign policy or red tape).Traveling abroad for medical treatment is not a new occurrence—people have made pilgrimages to hot springs or famous healthresorts since antiquity. But the trend has grown significantly inthe past five years for two important reasons: the push factorand the pull factor, according to Businessworld’s December 22,2003 article, “The Health Travellers.” The push factor is the largesurge in demand for health care in developed nations as lifeexpectancy continues to rise and the proportion of the elderly (incomparison to the total population) is rapidly increasing. The pullfactor is the excellent doctors and sophisticated facilities in exotic,developing countries like Thailand, Malaysia, and India.The push and pull factors can be broken down into the sevenprimary drivers of this global outsourcing evolution: cost, timing(waiting lists or lack thereof), quality of care, cutting-edgeprocedures, privacy, the opportunity for pre/post-op tourism, andefficiency.•
Cost:
approximately. 1/3-1/10 the cost in the U.S. orEurope, including airfare and lodging.•
Timing:
nearly immediate care instead of six to nine-monthwaiting lists.•
Quality:
complete competency; more RNs per patient; newfacilities; better rooms; state-of-the-art technology.•
Cutting-Edge Procedures:
life-changing operations not yetthrough the U.S.’s tedious FDA approval process.•
Privacy:
recuperate away from friends and co-workers.•
Tourism:
a change of scenery does wonders for the body,mind, and spirit during recovery.•
Efficiency:
Many patients don’t have a lot of vacationtime/sick leave, so the possibility of combining surgery with atropical vacation is appealing.
POTENTIAL HURDLESQuality.
Western patients may at first be wary at the prospectof traveling half way across the world for a surgery that couldmean the difference between life and death. After such initialdoubt, many patients will be convinced by statistics andanecdotes alike that outsourced care is high-class. Take thestory of Naresh Trehan, a heart surgeon at Escorts hospitalgroup in India, for example. Formerly earning $2 million/year inManhattan, Trehan recently returned to Delhi, where his hospitalcompleted more heart operations (4,200) than anywhere elsein the world in 2004 with death and infection rates well belowfirst-world averages (.8% and .3% compared with 1.2% and 1%,respectively). “Nobody questions the capability of an Indiandoctor, because there isn’t a big hospital in the United States orBritain where there isn’t an Indian doctor working.”
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And what about the patient experience? Byron Bonnewellof Louisiana, who received a quintuple bypass surgery atBumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand, raved about histreatment: “In Thailand, I bet I had eight RNs just on my section ofthe fl oor alone. First-class care.”
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These international hospitals pride themselves on creating anatmosphere of luxury. It’s no mistake that the facilities look morelike a five-star hotel than a hospital. Kim Atwater of Oregonexplains, “It’s much nicer than any hospital I’ve ever stayed in theUnited States.”
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Outsourcing Healthcare
‘First-World Care’ at ‘Third-World Prices’
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So this implies outsourcing of the treatment as well. Wonder if different countries could compete on the same healthcare treatment? http://hubpages.com/hub/HealthcareOut...