Saturday, August 26, 2006
Healthcare Tourism
Building a Healthcare Tourism Business
A few months ago I was at this Healthcare Tourism conference organized by the Kerala Tourism Department along with a few leading Hospitals. Either the organizers had done a great job marketing the event, or Healthcare Tourism was truly perceived as the next big thing-the conference was a total sell out and there must have been atleast 200 representatives of various healthcare orgnizations that were present on the second day of the conference.
I sat through presentations with content that bordered from the sublime to the ridiculous. Dr.Biju Krishnan who runs a Healthcare Tourism Company called Globe Health Tours (based out of the UK) had some very interesting points to make. His colleague talked about what it is that patients look for when exploring overseas options, and therefore how should Indian hospitals respond.
Everyone seems to believe that Accreditation (offered in India by the National Accrediation Board for Hospitals) is the answer to this, and some even talked about the state of their ambulance services !!! But there was very little on display that day about how these hospitals would actually reach out to the patients. Even more disappointing was the fact that there was hardly any debate about the segments that would be most attractive. Should they go behind the large population of uninsured patients in the US? And should they target this group for Hip Replacements, or Dental Procedures?
Such conferences are certainly useful since they help the industry collectively address what could become profitable opportunities. But the agenda needs to be set very carefully, and the speakers chosen with even greater care.
A few months ago I was at this Healthcare Tourism conference organized by the Kerala Tourism Department along with a few leading Hospitals. Either the organizers had done a great job marketing the event, or Healthcare Tourism was truly perceived as the next big thing-the conference was a total sell out and there must have been atleast 200 representatives of various healthcare orgnizations that were present on the second day of the conference.
I sat through presentations with content that bordered from the sublime to the ridiculous. Dr.Biju Krishnan who runs a Healthcare Tourism Company called Globe Health Tours (based out of the UK) had some very interesting points to make. His colleague talked about what it is that patients look for when exploring overseas options, and therefore how should Indian hospitals respond.
Everyone seems to believe that Accreditation (offered in India by the National Accrediation Board for Hospitals) is the answer to this, and some even talked about the state of their ambulance services !!! But there was very little on display that day about how these hospitals would actually reach out to the patients. Even more disappointing was the fact that there was hardly any debate about the segments that would be most attractive. Should they go behind the large population of uninsured patients in the US? And should they target this group for Hip Replacements, or Dental Procedures?
Such conferences are certainly useful since they help the industry collectively address what could become profitable opportunities. But the agenda needs to be set very carefully, and the speakers chosen with even greater care.
# posted by Srivathsan @ 8:37 AM 
