1.) Examine and analyze current and future innovations and trends in health care
strategic planning. What skills will these innovations and trends require you to have? What
do you still need to learn? How will you ensure that you are ready for
the industry? Include whether you are prepared for these
innovations and trends.2.) As a future Healthcare Administrator, what (2) insights will help you succeed
in the health care industry. Consider how these insights will help you succeed in your current or future role in the health care industry.
resource2.pdf
resource1.pdf
Unformatted Attachment Preview
ISSN: 2249-7196
IJMRR/ July 2014/ Volume 4/Issue 7/Article No-5/741-745
Dr. Nirmal Singh/ International Journal of Management Research & Review
HEALTHCARE TOURISM: AN EMERGING CONCEPT
Dr. Nirmal Singh*1
1
Department of Tourism & Hotel Management, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, India.
ABSTRACT
The concept of travelling for medical care is now referred to as healthcare tourism, medical
tourism or medical travel. Medical tourism or health tourism is new and researchable
concepts for academicians and tourism industry in India as well. In the near future, travelling
for healthcare needs may become more important rather than the exception with more
consumers choosing options outside their immediate locale. Healthcare tourism is becoming a
new and emerging international business which is gradually growing and gaining importance
in the form of new tourism product. This paper has a focus on healthcare tourism as an
alternate form of tourism, and has clear advantages over mass tourism almost without any
adverse impact with comparison to other forms of tourism.
Keywords: Health, care, India, emerging, comparison.
INTRODUCTION
Tourism has been proved as the driving force for the economy of the many countries in the
world. The contribution of tourism can be seen in poverty eradication and conservation as
well. Presently tourism is most important sector and major source of foreign exchange
earning in Thailand, Australia, Newzealand, Singapore and Nepal. It is ranked second in
Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Philippines and ranked 3rd in Singapore and Indonesia. The rapid
growth of tourism industry has been attributed to a number of factors including strong
economic growth; increase in disposable income leisure time, easing of travel instruction,
successful tourism promotion and recognition by the host governments that tourism is
powerful engine of growth. Besides all above discussed reasons tourism also affected
negatively with positive as well. Among major negative impacts of tourism such as cultural
impacts environmental impacts, tempering of archaeological sites , child prostitution etc.
have compelled the policy maker researcher and tourism professional to think about health or
medical tourism with other emerging concepts such as eco-tourism, rural-tourism, wildlifetourism, Agri-tourism as an alternate form of tourism with minimum negative impacts.
Now the question arises that what is this health or medical tourism or what does it mean.
Health tourism means to travel to other countries because of high cure, specialized treatment
and low cost. According to Mckinsey (may 2008) medical tourism is defined as traveling
explicitly for medical treatment in a foreign country. These patents typically seek higher
quality medical services of an inpatient and outpatient nature in a hospital setting. Because of
this group seek prompt service for their medical condition, searching for a lower cost
procedure is not a priority. Mckinsey defined this group of medical travelers as individuals
*Corresponding Author
www.ijmrr.com
741
Dr. Nirmal Singh/ International Journal of Management Research & Review
who demand the most-advanced technology, especially when those services are not available
in the patient are who country. For travelers who travel overseas for medical purposes,
conceptually they would meet the definition of a tourist. Since medical tourist are traveler
whose main motivation for travel is for a specific purpose, medical tourist can be categorized
as a group of special interest tourist (SIT), hence participating in a form of special interest
tourism (Douglas, Douglas and Derrett, 2001) illustrates the components of medical and
health tourism.
Table 1: The Service Spectrum offered in India
The Service Spectrum
Wellness
Alternative
Cosmetic
Advanced and
tourism
system
of surgery
life
caring
medicine
healthcare
Spas,
stress Ayurvedics,
Dental
care, Organ
Services
relief,
siddha,
plastic surgery, transplants,
offered
rejuvenation
treatment
for breast
cardio vascular
centers
disease
like enhancement,
surgery,
eye
arthritis
and tummy
treatment,
hit
rheumatism
reduction, skin replacement
treatment
Source : (Sheenu Jain 2007)
A) Treatment of illness: – The “treatment of illness” generally includes medical check-ups,
health screenings, dental treatment, neurosurgery, transplants and other procedure that require
qualified medical intervention (
C. Lee & M. Spisto 2007). For example chronic
diseases which are not curable in developing countries and the patents of these disease look
towards the advanced countries like USA, UK, and other European countries. But the
facilities in above advanced countries are availed only by the patents of higher income group
rather than low income group.
B) Enhancement procedure :- these type of procedures are carried out mainly for aesthetic
purposes some of these procedures require qualified medical personal but much of this nondisease related (unless disfigurement is caused by disease). The procedure included all
cosmetic surgeries, breast surgery, facelifts, liposuction, and cosmetic dental work (C. Lee &
M. Spisto 2007). India has immense potential for enhancement procedure facilities for
example bollywood is situated in India and the film professional especially actors, actresses
require this type of medical facilities because they have to present their selves before public
as young.
C) Wellness: The wellness segment of medical and health care tourism promotes healthier
lifestyles (Bennett, King and Milner, 2004). Nowadays, spa-wellness services are quite
common. Professionals apply thermal water and some aromatic cure treatment in order to
reduce the pain and suffering to the patent.
D) Reproduction related treatment: It is also an increasing and growing area of medical
tourism travel under this component there are patents who seek fertility-related treatments
such as in vitro and in vivo fertilization and other similar procedures (C. Lee & M. Spisto
2007).
Copyright © 2012 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved
742
Dr. Nirmal Singh/ International Journal of Management Research & Review
E) Birth-tourism: Birth-tourism is also included in category of special interest tourism (SIT)
like medical tourism (TRAM 2006) this category involves a pregnant mother who travels to
another country to give birth to her baby in order to utilize the services which are often free.
In addition a further advantage for her is to have her child gain citizen ship of the new
country and thus be able to reside permanently in the new location. At times, potential
parents travel for the purposes of adopting children because the legislation and supply of
babies for adoption is easier in the host countries.
F) Low-cost treatment: this group of patents looks towards the countries where healthcare
centers are of hi-tech, and qualified and specialized medical experts with low-cost air
traveling and approachability. For example neighboring countries patents of India are the
potential market for Indian medical industry. Because India is within reach from the view of
point of air travel and low-cost treatment.
Table 2: Comparative costs for different ailments in India
Treatment
Approximate
Cost in India
Open Heart Surgery
Cranio-Facial
Surgery
And Skull Base
Neuro-Surgery
With
Hypothermia
Complex Spine Surgery
With Implants
Simple Spine Surgery
Simple Brain Tumor
Biopsy
Surgery
4,500
4,300
Cost in other
Major
Healthcare
Destination (S)*
>18,000
>13,000
9-11
6-8
6,500
>21,000
12-14
4,300
>13,000
9-11
2,100
>6,500
9-11
1,000
4,300
>4,300
>10,000
6-8
>6,500
>26,000
9-11
Parkinson’s
Lesion
DBS
2,100
17,000
Source : (Sheenu Jain 2007)
Approximate Waiting
periods in USA/UK
(in months)
MEDICAL TOURISM TRENDS
During the last decade, the medical travel movement has accelerated sharply. More than 130
countries around the world are competing for a pie of this global business medical tourism
became more important due to increasing attention on importance of health, Singapore, The
Philippines, UAE and India pay a lot of efforts to increase the revenue on health tourism. For
example, Singapore is planning to host one million patents and earn $ 1.8 billion in near
future. Dubai has founded a “treatment city” for Asian patents (health tourism sector report,
2011). It is generally estimated that the present global medical tourism is to be approximately
US $ 40 billion with an annual growth rate of 20%. Nigerian citizens spend about $ 2 billion
Copyright © 2012 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved
743
Dr. Nirmal Singh/ International Journal of Management Research & Review
per year to get medical treatment outside the country. Japan is sending its employees abroad
for even the most miner health problem and leads elderly people to nursing homes abroad.
India holds competitive advantages in healthcare tourism – be it the low-cost advantage,
availability of healthcare professionals, reputation for treatment in advanced healthcare
segments such as cardio-vascular surgery, organ transplants, and eye surgery, increasing
popularity of India’s traditional wellness systems, and strengths in information technology.
Further, the International Passenger Survey – 2003 has estimated that about 2 million nonresident Indians visiting India every year, of which about 10% come with healthcare
objective. This works out to about 200,000 NRI patients visiting India to undergo various
treatments. All these put together, the visitors to India with healthcare objective could be
estimated at around 300,000 patients.
In addition, there are a large number of international visitors, including non-resident Indians,
who come for other purposes, but use wellness systems, such as Ayurveda / Yoga or Spiritual
Healing. Even if we assume that only 5% of foreign travelers undertake such wellness
systems in India, the estimated number of travelers under this category would be 200,000.
Thus, it may be quantified that the healthcare visitors to India would easily be in the range of
around 500,000.
We may assume that 10% of the general foreign visitors may use wellness systems during
their travel to India, and spend about 20% of their total expenditure on healthcare; the total
spending on healthcare by these travelers works out to approximately US $ 150 million.
Putting together, the healthcare tourism industry in India generated revenue of over US $ 600
million (or about Rs 2400 crores) in 2006. It may be mentioned that the given estimate is
considering healthcare in its broader perspective.
SUMMARY
• To get rid from the waiting list for the patent’s of chronic diseases such as cancer and heart
diseases.
• To avail the facilities from the qualified medical specialists within limited period, the hitech laboratories,
• The low-cost of treatment.
• And requirement of different environments for disabled and elder patients.
• The availability of the facilities within reach are the factor that plays an important role in
development of health tourism.
CONCLUSION
The disposable income is increasing with life quality of the people is also increasing and the
cost of healthcare services is also growing up, people tended to some countries in order to get
better quality and relatively cheap services. Proportional increase in the elderly population
has been one of the factors that increase health tourism as well. In health tourism, the cures
and medical treatment expenses diminishes more than fifty percent when compare to patent’s
home country. The most efficient factor about development of health care tourism which is
the branch of tourism filed are lowering the expenses, Improvement in medical technologies,
low transportation costs and online marketing.
Copyright © 2012 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved
744
Dr. Nirmal Singh/ International Journal of Management Research & Review
REFERENCES
Bennett M, King B, Milner L. The health resort sector in Australia: A positioning study.
Journal of Vacation Marketing 2004; 10(2): 122-137.
Cahill A. Access to healthcare abroad. Irish Examiner.com. 2011.
Cohen E. Medical tourism- A critical evaluation. Tourism Recreation Research 2010; 35(3):
225-238.
Connell J. Medical tourism: Sea, sun, sun and …surgery. Tourism Management 2006; 27:
1093-1100.
Lee C, Michael S. Medical tourism, the future of health services. International Tourism And
Hospitality Research 2007; 1.
Cockrell N. Spas and health resources in Europe. Travel and Tourism Analyst, 1, The
Economist Intelligence Unit Limited. 1996.
Department of Tourism. Incredible India: The Global Healthcare Destination. New Delhi:
Department of Tourism, Government of India. 2006.
Douglas N, Douglas N, Derrett R. Special Interest Tourism, Wiley, Australia. 2001.
Garcia-Altes M. The development of health tourism services. Annals of Tourism Research
2005; 32(1): 22-266.
George BP. Medical Tourism an Analysis with special Reference to India. Journal of
Hospitality Application and Research (JOHAR)
Goodrich JN, Goodrich GE. Health Care Tourism. In Managing Tourism, Medlik, S., ed.
New York: Butterworth Heinman. 1990.
Healthcare Management. Medical tourism: Opportunities and challenges for India. Express
Healthcare Management 16-31 March 2005.
www.expresshealthcaremgmt.com
Health Tourism Sector Report. West Mediterranean Development Agency. 2011.
Henderson JC. Healthcare tourism in Southeast Asia. Tourism Review International 2004; 7:
111-121.
Medical tourism. Medical Tourism India: Medical Packages to India. Medical Tourism News
and Reviews. 2005. www.indiamedicaltourusm.net
Medical tourism. What is medical tourism? 2005. www.medicaltourism.ca
Prakash M, Tyagi N, Devrath R. A study of problems and challenges faced by medical
tourists visiting India. A study by IITTM Gwalior, 2011.
Teh I, Chu C. Supplementing Growth with Medical Tourism. APBN 2005; 9(8): 306-311.
TRAM. Medical tourism: a global analysis. A report by Tourism Research and Marketing
(TRAM), ATLAS, 2006.
Copyright © 2012 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved
745
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without
permission.
Practice note
Implementing Best Practices
for Needs Assessment and
Strategic Planning Systems:
Social Work and Faith Based
Organization Collaboration—
A Case Study
Nicholas Placido & David Cecil
Needs assessment is a critical component of strategic planning and a powerful
way for social workers to integrate their faith and practice by collaborating
with faith-based organizations (FBOs). FBOs, including churches, provide
critical human services and benefit from systematic needs assessment and
evaluation processes (LaPiana, 2008), just like their secular counterparts. This
article describes how social workers conducted a needs assessment with a local
congregation utilizing proven methods (Dudley, 2014; Posavac & Carey, 1997;
Witkin & Altschund, 1995) that can be generalized throughout the profession
and faith-based organizations. This article includes a description of data collection, management, and analysis. Collaboration is defined as an approach that
individualizes churches as FBOs, recognizing their expertise and the importance
of wide buy-in from stakeholders. The eight-step process is an elaboration on
the Multimethod Church-Based Assessment Process (MCAP) that includes
consulting to generate specific questions (Steps 1-4), collecting information
(Steps 5-7), and providing feedback (Step 8) (Dominguez & McMinn, 2003)
(See Appendix A). The specific steps are 1) qualitative data analysis by church
staff; 2) social worker collaboration to perform thematic analysis; 3) survey
construction based on themes; 4) survey pilot; 5) data collection; 6) data management; 7) data analysis; 8) data reporting/recommendation (Dudley, 2014;
Social Work & Christianity, Vol. 41, No. 1 (2014), 79–94
Journal of the North American Association of Christians in Social Work
Social Work & Christianity
80
LaPiana, 2008; Posavac & Carey, 1997; Rubin & Babbie, 2005; United Way
of America, 1996; Witkin & Altschuld, 1995). This article describes how this
plan can be replicated as well as providing examples of results from the needs
assessment. A full case study of this needs assessment is in NACSW Conference
Proceedings (Placido & Cecil, 2012).
But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the
one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by
the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything
from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable
in all they do. (James 1: 6-8, NIV)
F
aith-based organizations (fbos) that provide human services
must fearlessly ask the important questions about what it is doing and
where it is going. FBOs, including churches, are currently providing
important community and human services and can avoid double-mindedness
by performing needs assessment, a critical part of strategic planning. Social
workers, with our emphasis on relationship, strengths perspective, and
problem solving, are optimally positioned to assist these FBOs in performing
needs assessments in the context of relational and strengths perspectives.
This also provides an opportunity for social workers to integrate faith and
practice. This integration channels the value-laden relational aspect of both
Christian faith and social work (Northrop & Perry, 1985; Langer, 2003) into
best practice approaches to needs assessment (Dudley, 2014; LaPiana, 2008;
Posavac & Carey, 1997; Rubin & Babbie, 2005; United Way of America,
1996; Witkin & Altschuld, 1995). When done well, needs assessments of
this kind can serve to validate and deepen the FBO identity and values, as
well as carefully set the stage for growth and change.
Literature Review
FBOs as Powerful Sources of Human Services
FBOs are powerful sources of human services because they mobilize
volunteers and provide resources such as funding and facilities to the community. They are often trusted and engaged members of the community
with established relationships. Thus, they are able to meet human service
needs and become vital referral sources. The Lawndale Christian Health
Center is an outreach of the Lawndale Community Church located in an
underserved community of Chicago. It provides medical, mental health,
and other related social work services to people with limited means and
options (Serrano, 2003). Holland (2010) notes the work of The Riverside
Social Work and Faith Based Organization Collaboration
Church in New York City whose Social Service Ministry provides assistance
to those in need, a food pantry, a barber training program, clothing distribution, homeless shelter, and HIV testing and support. The Salvation Army is
a highly noted FBO that provides care and support to the needy and those
facing difficulties in multiple countries (Whalen, 1992).
History affirms that with careful planning, FBOs serve as powerful
sources of community service that avoid stagnation and isolation. As James
2:17 (ESV) states, “Faith without works is dead.” Additionally, Holt (1922)
reminds us that “religious experience cannot be held in a compartment by
itself… A vigorous Christianity has always projected its great ideas about
God, salvation, and human duty into the ordinary relationships of human
living” (p. 5). “Almost all modern social services can be traced back to
roots in religious organizations” (Garland, 1992, p. 1). Examples of these
efforts include:
• The Methodist Settlement Movement in the mid-1800s “staffed
outreach programs to the most marginalized inhabitants of the
inner cities” (Kreutziger, 2008, p. 81).
• In the early 1900s, the Baptist Training School Settlement in
Louisville provided aid to the immigrant communities (Scales
& Kelly, 2012).
• Phoebe Palmer, a holiness evangelist, founded the Five Points
Mission in New York City in 1850 (Garland, 1992).
Needs Assessment Critical to Strategic Planning
Needs assessments …
Purchase answer to see full
attachment
