Talk:Medical tourism

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[edit] Medical

Medical tourism call it what it is! All these companies have been bracketed by this term by the so-called experts who could come up with no better word to describe what has happened in the USA over the past several years. The truth is that Medical Tourism is nothing new. Colombia has been treating savvy patients for years from all over the world especially for cosmetic and eye surgery. Colombia has been a recognized provider of high quality care in advanced cardiovascular and transplant surgery for years. Transplant surgery is not only available to many persons because of the high cost but because waiting lists (USA) or no established organ banking system. But what’s most amusing to me is that what is happening with the so-called "Medical Tourism in the USA" phenomena is the tables have turned on the USA. Just years ago, persons would travel from everywhere in the world to have surgery done in such places as Mayo and Cleveland Clinics. Many of these persons have been redirected to other countries that can provide equal or better levels of care because of unreasonable and cumbersome visa requirements after 9-11. So what has emerged out of this phenomena is a classic sending offshore more jobs of persons back home in the USA -- somewhat akin to shipping manufacturing and service (call centers) jobs offshore – only this time it is the some of the more unlikely candidates: physicians and other medical professionals. The experts say that medical tourism will amount to a $10 billion industry by 2009. So there's enough to go around for every country that can provide the exacting standards required by USA patients who have had some of the world's best care but now have been forced to shop around for a better deal. Consider Colombia! No visa restrictions and cheaper airfare over some other destinations located in Asia.


[edit] Medical Tourism in the USA

Links to MedRetreat, a for-profit medical tourism company, if medicaltourism.com doesn't make the cut with unbiased reporting about providers, why do we have a for profit service linked?

The Medical Tourism Association is an international non-profit association of leading hospitals from around the world. www.medicaltravelauthority.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by Medicaltourism (talk • contribs) 09:55, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Medical Tourism indian-medical-tourism.com

Commercial sites should not be promoted in Wikipedia. However this is a unique neutral non-commerical site that does not promote one institution or individual over another. It is an important contribution to the community, and provides an illustration of what is being discussed in the Wikipedia text and the resources available. This happens often throughout Wikipedia, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typo3, or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craigs_list

What is "commercial" about indian-medical-tourism.com? It does not even contain advertising (the links are posted by patients and the medical tourism community without charge) like Craigs list. As I read the Wikipedia pillars, it complies... Hopefully I have made the case in a satisfactory manner. Unless i hear more specificlaly why it should not be done, I would like to add indian-medical-tourism.com, a non-commercial neutral link, back unless someone explains why not. If I am not inserting this type of link right (even though it seems to be done the same was as was done in the other numerous examples), please let me know what specificially needs to be done to make this entry compatible with these others. Thanks, your timely response is appreciated. SP 18:16, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

The line needs to be drawn between commercial (i.e. for profit) and not commercial (i.e. not for profit). Although indian-medical-tourism.com provides useful information, it is nonetheless, a commercial enterprise operating as a travel agency focused on the Indian market. There are many other useful sites in this space that provide quality research at no charge (i.e. www.medtrotter.com) but a line needs to be drawn fairly in order to not promote commercial entities, yet leverage useful information that often is found in these locations.

It's obviously commercial. You just have to read the "about us": "Medical Tourism India is being offered by the premier India based tour operator - Travel India Company"... Carfeu 15:22, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merger

I would support the merger of this article with the medical value travel article, and that medical tourism become the name of this particular subject. Medical value travel has 188 hits on a Google search while Medical tourism has more than 83 million. Seems Medical value travel isn't really catching on as the term for this trend. On both searches, by the way, the Wikipedia entry came up first. Both articles need to be rewritten and condensed, with greater attention to given to references and citations, as well as wikification throughout. Also I wonder if Medical tourism in Thailand and the oddly named Medical Tourism India should also be merged with the medical tourism article? -Wisekwai 20:03, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dental tourism

Dental tourism should be merged here. Little need for its own article. --ZimZalaBim (talk) 18:26, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Support It should be a category in this one Corpx 07:00, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Reject As it stands the Dental Tourism page does not need to exist at all. However a proper treatment of the subject would either need it's own page, or a restructuring of the Medical Tourism page. At present the Medical Tourism page concentrates on features of limited relevance to Dental Tourism - hospital accreditation, surgical complications etc... The profile of those travelling, where they travel and the value of the proceedures is sufficently different to justify a separate pate. A meaningful page on the subject would add to the field and can be linked from the Medical Tourism page or have an introductory paragragh in Medical Tourism that links to the main page.

87.198.142.190 14:50, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality issues

This article contains quite a few neutrality problems. As currently written, most of the material is unsourced, e.g.

  • Medical tourists are generally residents of the industrialized nations of the world, the countries they travel are typically the less developed ones with lower cost of high quality medical care

Who is vouching for the medical care as being "high quality?"

No source is given for the assertion that "health care insurance companies within industrialized nations have begun considering medical tourism as a potential cost-saving measure."

It is suggested that in the U. S. "most view Medical Tourism as risky because of lack of information, confusion and understanding." No sources are provided, and no evidence is presented that medical tourism is not "risky."

One of the reasons cited for an increase in medical tourism is "favorable currency exchange rates in the global economy." But this is certainly not true for the United States.

The tone of the article is overwhelmingly promotional. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:26, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. This article is a good overview. While editing can improve the quality of the article with qualifiers and more objective statistics, as is, it is still informative and a good overview to get persons started in learning about the topic. This is exactly what Wikipedia is meant to do. --SP 06:41, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
''The American Standard of Joint Commission International Accredidation, that's who. If you view the JCI website you can find that the quality of these institutions is better than most of the "best" hospitals in America. These countries have gone through political/policy changes to insure their viability in the world market, knowing that if their medical care for cross-border patients were to be anywhere near slack compared to the U.S. or England would be incomprehensible. This is resulting in higher standards and close patient-physician interaction with very good outcomes.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.118.108.51 (talk • contribs) 20:08, 8 September 2006 (UTC).

I have edited out advert-style wording, tourism statements that seem unrelated to medical tourism specifically, and unsourced, POV assertions. -- Sfmammamia 23:48, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I would like to see a separate Wikipedia article on "international healthcare accreditation", looking not just as JCI but also at the available options to what is a very USA-orientated organisation in the way it functions. While this issue clearly affects medical tourism, it also has much wider importance to healthcare and patients safety. --SP 23:56(GMT), 18 August 2007 (UTC)


Hi. The standards quality control issue is clearly vital when it comes to medical tourism - who wants to die under the knife in an unfamiliar place ?. Also, you need to be sure that ethical standards are what they should be, and that "the rule of law" applied to the practice of medicine in the country you are travelling to for healthcare reasons (i.e. if you wish to complain or take legal action, will anyone be interested ?). International healthcare accreditation is one way to help ensure that adequate standards are maintained, with the proviso that the USA is not the only place that practices good-quality medicine in the world and offers accrditation - there are other reputable accreditation groups apart from JCI of the USA in this world !. Let's be fair and all-inclusive !

I also do think that the article needs cleaned up a bit - it is full of very useful information, but some of what is written at the moment is not objective, and is in fact narcissistic and "PRish" !!! - some of it is certainly not evidence-based.

Professorial 11:38, 21 September 2007 (UTC)Professorial

[edit] Reorganization

The section after the table of prices beginning "Popular medical travel worldwide destinations" seems to me to be more suitable as an introduction to the Destinations section. I would suggest a thinning out of this section to perform such a function as at present it contains a good deal of questionable material that lacks the depth possible in longer sections for each country - for instance "In places like the U.S., which has high standards of quality, medical tourism is viewed as risky" assumes that standards in the U.S are comparatively high, no reference is given. "While the tourism component might be a big draw for some Southeast Asia countries that focus on simple procedures" - which countries, what 'simple procedures'? There should probably be guidelines for each country's section, length inclusion of relevant date etc... For the section to work a larger number of countries need to written up in a way that allows for clearer comparison and information gathering. There is at present a noticeable lack of entries for European destinations like Turkey, Hungary and Poland. Unintentional bias through omission is nearly as bad as intended misdirection.

The inclusion of Belgium - very much a first world Western European country - highlights the lack of analysis of Medical Tourism as a product of the marketplace and of value differences between countries. The reason need not always be a good exchange rate or cheap labour. For instance countries may have opted to create surplus capacity in their healthcare systems. This enables them to deal with their own populations needs and additionally sell excess to others while benefiting from economies of scale and larger repositories of skilled labour. Potentially one of the most interesting aspects of Medical Tourism will be how western health services react to the pressures of a more competitive market.

I am aware of it in my own writing and it is evident in this page that the focus is to much on westerners travelling. Possibly more interesting markets are those in Asia where regional Medical Tourism is strong and underreported in U.S. or European publications. So if anybody has detailed knowledge of this it would certainly help balance the page.

87.198.142.190 13:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality of Statement questioned

Since I am health care professional and involved in the industry, I will not edit this article. I do hope the administrators will take note of what follows and act accordingly. The following statement placed in the article appears to lack neutrality and appears to be more commercial puffery than factual.

"While the tourism component might be a big draw for some Southeast Asia countries that focus on simple procedures, India is positioning itself the primary medical destination for the most complex medical procedures in the world. India's commitment to this is demonstrated with a growing number of hospitals that are attaining the U.S. Joint Commission International accreditation to help to capture the US medical tourism market, while others looking beyond just the US market to potential clients from the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia may also look towards other international healthcare accreditation schemes for brand advantage."

In fact the primary medical tourism destinations in Southeast Asia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore all perform complex procedures and are competent to do so. Singapore for example is home to Dr. K.C. Tan one of the world's best liver transplant specialists (http://www.mb.com.ph/issues/2006/03/06/WLBG2006030657679.html). In Thailand Bumrungrad, Bangkok Hospital and Samitivej Sukhumvit all have accreditation by the US based Joint Commission International Program (http://www.jointcommissioninternational.com/23218/iortiz/). Singapore has 14 JCI accredited hospitals. Additionally Bumrungrad Hospital was selected by Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, an American Health insurance company as the first non-US hospital to be accepted into its network of providers (http://www.bcbs.com/news/plans/bluecross-blueshield-and.html). To say that the focus of some Southeast Asian countries involved in medical tourism is, "simple procedures" is not factual. All of the countries actively involved in medical tourism offer a broad spectrum of competencies as evidenced by JCI accredditation and in one instance accreditation by BCBS of South Carolina. To claim otherwise merely serves to degrade the reputation of the facilities in that region.NYerkes 04:12, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Additions of organizations claiming to be neutral experts on health tourism but not yet independently recognized as such

The following additions appear to be more commercial puffery. Both organizations are newly founded and aside from their own press releases are not recognized authorities on health tourism as they suggest. While they may become independently recognized as neutral sources for information in the future, that is not currently the case.

"The Society for International Healthcare Accreditation, or SOFIHA, is a free-to-join group providing a forum for discussion and for the sharing of ideas and good practice by providers of international healthcare accreditation and users of the same - the primary role of this organisation is to promote a safe hospital environment for patients, wherever they travel to in the world for health care."

"HealthCare Tourism International, or HTI, is the first U.S.- based non-profit organization to accredit the non-clinical aspects of health tourism such as language issues, business practices and false or misleading advertising prevention. The group has accreditation for all the major groups involved in the health tourism industry from hotels, to recover facilities to medical tourism booking agencies, etc. NYerkes 05:18, 31 October 2007 (UTC)"

[edit] Neutrality Issue

The Following addition appears to have been placed with the intent of disparaging Thailand rather than offering objective neutral information.

"However, there is indisputably a major HIV/AIDS problem in Thailand, as acknowledged by the World Health Organisation [17] and dengue is becoming increasingly common."

The linked report is dated material published in 2001. Other countries mentioned in the 2001 WHO report that are also medical tourism destinations are not mentioned. No mention is made of Thailand's HIV prevention treatment program being suggested as a model for other countries (http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=39235. Further, the addition of the information about HIV serves no purpose in the context of this article. HIV is not airborne nor is it spread via vectors. Thailand's hospitals practice Universal Precautions which makes nosocomial transmission highly unlikely. Regarding dengue fever, it common in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific countries (http://www.who.int/features/qa/54/en/index.html. Again, no other countries offering medical tourism were singled out for inclusion of this information despite some having a higher incidence of dengue fever than Thailand. There is no suggestion by the WHO that Thailand is experiencing an increase in the number of cases of dengue fever. Thailand is not mentioned by the WHO in reports on major Dengue Fever outbreaks (http://www.who.int/csr/don/archive/disease/dengue_haemorrhagic_fever/en/index.html). Thailand has not been associated with major outbreaks of Dengue fever unlike some of the other medical tourism destinations (http://www.cdc.gov/NCIDOD/DVBID/DENGUE/) NYerkes 05:17, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Personal opinion added to article

The insertion of the line

"Dubious given that Rockefeller was in Thailand from the early 1920's and Mahidol was a low-ranked royal, not in Thailand most of the time]."

It is an expression of opinion and is not supported by the facts.

"During the first period of his residence at Harvard, Prince Mahidol also negotiated and concluded, on behalf of the Royal Thai Government, an agreement with the Rockefeller Foundation on assistance for medical and nursing education in Thailand." (see http://kanchanapisek.or.th/pmaf/complete-biography.en.php).

Mahidol was not a low ranking royal as suggested. He was the youngest son of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V). His two male children, one of whom is the present monarch, would become kings of Thailand. In 1921 Prince Mahidol was appointed Director-General of the University Department, Ministry of Education giving him considerable authority to implement the improvement of Thailand's medical education system. NYerkes 07:19, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criteria for external links

In this debate about what organizations should qualify for listing as an external link (whether embedded in the text or at the bottom), there seem to be at least two major criteria under debate -- relevance and objectivity. I am among those who would not like the "External Links" entry for the MT page to become a long and cumbersome list of commercial companies. While it is reasonable to argue that major players in the industry, such as MedRetreat, Planet Hospital, or IndUSHealth warrant a listing because of their prominence in the industry, it is obviously a difficult question of where to draw the line. So why not have a clear link at the bottom to a secondary site that lists companies? For a person genuinely interested in pursuing an MT journey, it is a service to provide a comprehensive listing of companies -- a valid informational service that would seem in line with Wikipedia's encyclopedic agenda.

As for organizations that are not making money off of the MT industry, but do provide relevant and actionable information for people who want to understand/research the industry and perhaps locate medical providers, I would argue for their listing in the "External Links" entry at the bottom of the page. I will say right up that I am biased in this position because I work for just such a company! Our company, www.medicalnomad.com, hasn't made a penny in this industry, from anyone. We are an information-site only, and a 5-minute browsing of our website makes that perfectly clear. Yet, we have not been allowed to sustain an "External Links" listing on the MT page. I would argue that substantive, non-profit informational sites that strive for an objective account of the industry, alongside media articles and blogs that do the same, are precisely the kinds of links that should be allowed to stand.

Thoughts?

Brotherman04 (talk) 06:15, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Brotherman04, thank you for bringing the discussion here. Since you are involved with the website, it is inappropriate for you to add the link (see WP:COI), but you are welcome to bring it up on the relevant talk page. To address a couple of your points:
  • "I am among those who would not like the "External Links" entry for the MT page to become a long and cumbersome list of commercial companies": This cannot happen since it violates the external link guidelines WP:EL and also the "What Wikipediea is not: a directory of links to other websites" WP:NOT#LINK.
  • "While it is reasonable to argue that major players in the industry, such as MedRetreat, Planet Hospital, or IndUSHealth warrant a listing because of their prominence in the industry, it is obviously a difficult question of where to draw the line." Actually, listing external links for these companies would be inappropriate on this page. The only place for a link to those sites would be on the article for that business (see WP:EL). If the names of those businesses is mentioned on this page an internal link to the Wikipedia article for that company is appropriate.
  • "I would argue that substantive, non-profit informational sites that strive for an objective account of the industry, alongside media articles and blogs that do the same, are precisely the kinds of links that should be allowed to stand." This sounds good to me too, but I do not find that your website is up to this level at the present moment. Your site basically falls under many categories of websites to avoid linking (see WP:EL#Links_normally_to_be_avoided): the main content appears to be the directory, the forum, and the blog -- all of which should be avoided as external links. In general, the forum, blog, and articles are too light on content at the current time to be considered encyclopedic.
This is not a reflection on the quality of the website or its potential usefulness for those who visit it. There are many great websites that are inappropriate to link on Wikipedia. In part, this is because the goal of editing Wikipedia is to improve the content of the articles rather than direct readers away to other websites. My suggestion would be to list your website with DMOZ -- note that the DMOZ directory is linked in the external link section. Good luck with your work. Nposs (talk) 06:55, 30 November 2007 (UTC)