Tools for the Development of Regional Medical Tourism Programs: International Experience

Abstract

Background. Internationalization of global healthcare and, in particular, the development of international medical tourism, informs the creation of a strategy for the development of domestic medical tourism programs in regions, states, or provinces using various tools for each stage of market development. Purpose. This article aims to identify, classify, and analyze the development tools for regional medical tourism programs applied in the countries recognized as international destinations for medical tourism. Methods and materials. The study data are based on foreign and domestic scientific publications in the field of international medical tourism and the export of medical services. The authors analyzed publications on the development of regional medical tourism programs in the media and performed content analysis of scientific publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Results. The internationalization of global healthcare has a significant influence on cross-border private medical travel (medical tourism), thus encouraging the development of both national and regional healthcare. The existing global practice of 19 countries in regional medical tourism provides an extensive development toolkit that includes more than 70 tools focusing on various aspects of the elaboration and implementation of opportunities for regional medical tourism and the export of medical services. The tools can be implemented in one of the four stages of market development: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. The first stage is characterized by the prevalence of tools related to analysis and the development of the market base. The growth stage focuses on market expansion. At the third stage, the first tools aimed at offering better price for medical services appear. The stage of market decline is focused on the expansion of the target consumers by increasing the financial accessibility of medical tours. At the same time, the third and fourth stages are characterized by a limited number of support tools, which can be explained by the relative immaturity of the global medical tourism market and the focus on programs designed for the international market rather than on increasing economic efficiency. Therefore, in the following years, the scientific and professional communities will focus on the development and implementation of tools that can increase the reflow of financial resources expended on market development. The results of this study can be useful to the subjects of the Russian Federation that are interested in the development of regional strategies in terms of the federal project on the development of the export of medical services as part of the “Healthcare” national project.