Call it medical tourism, healthcare outsourcing, medical value travel, medical travel, the industry is feeding the need of people who want more options and control on how and where they undergo a treatment and we ( stakeholders in the medical tourism domain) are fuelling this need by commoditizing healthcare. The provider and the consumer may be separated by an ocean or a few blocks but adoption of utilities available on internet is changing the way informed patient looks for and takes up services in healthcare.
I am trying to analyze the changes that might be brought about in the healthcare industry as people use the internet and technology for their health related services and start to travel in large numbers to providers beyond their immediate vicinity for treatment.
Many of the points being discussed have been around for the last few years and we are going to see is an increased adoptability leading to these technologies and services getting even more powerful to cater to the rising demand.
Online Hospital information System
As people start using the internet for identification, communication and transactions, it becomes imperative for a part of the hospital Information system to migrate online to cater to the requirements. This could be a shared platform where multiple hospitals globally come on board, network with the referrers and patients in different countries, manage relationships and facilitate transactions.
Patient portals
With the patients having the same access to information as doctors, this growing community of net savvy patients will be more demanding and will see the physicians as partners.
The patient portal of tomorrow (with search capabilities increasing) will give filtered information finely tailored to the requirements of the user. People now have control in creating, maintaining and permitting multiple care givers to access their medical records online
( ex- Healthvault by Microsoft and googlehealth). When more and more hospitals take up these services as a result of the demand created by the informed patient, these technologies will grow powerful. These patient portals will grow even more powerful when they get combined to an online communication system with the caregiver, and gets connected to intelligent wireless monitoring systems.
Telediagnosis, Telemonitoring and remote consulting
One of the areas that would grow as a result of medical tourism is going to be telemedicine. As people start to travel more there will be a requirement for diagnosis and treatment planning even before they embark on the journey. So we will see more products and services related to telemedicine similar to Cisco’s Healthpod which allows remote diagnosis and can transfer of data directly to the hospital in a different location. With these new age intelligent devices that help in remote monitoring and reporting using wireless technologies, we have a new kind of patient who is always in touch with a healthcare service provider 24/7.
One question… when remote robotic surgery becomes more accepted, with surgeons operating on patients in another continent using robotic arms, or better still think of an unassisted remote robotic surgery where an intelligent robot running on a software program that uses data collected from surgeries done by hundreds of surgeons globally to perform the surgery without human intervention. Will this again fall under medical tourism?
I beleive the stake holders of the medical tourism domain will also fuel the acceptance of these technologies.
Collaborative service provider
The medical tourism facilitator who has partnership arrangements with multiple hospitals will be able to connect online with these hospitals, insurance companies, patients and employers. The role of this business sector will continue to grow and the scope will always be on the increase. They will be seen as a partner in healthcare and will be responsible for wellness as well as management of illness. These collaborative service providers will also have a role of deciphering the information transmitted by the wireless devises used for healthcare by the customer, advising lifestyle changes, ordering lab and other tests, interfacing with the hospital post treatment and facilitating aftercare. So the medical tourism company will continue to be a collaborative service that acts as an intermediary for the hospital, insurance company and the employer while acting as an advisory to the patient.
Voices of patients in a networked world
Social networking is a valuable tool for the growth of medical tourism industry. The number of communication channels that open up can go close to the square ( n*(n-1))of the number of users on the network. The patient portals might also have the social networking platform inbuilt and could be networked with existing networking platforms. These will become powerful forces as communication channels between patients that have undergone a treatment and potential patients looking out for treatment options open up. This network, when it reaches a critical mass will have the capability to control opinions in the healthcare industry. Tracking these communication channels, learning from them, taking damage control measures if necessary, utilizing these networking channels will become an important marketing challenge in the days to come. These networked voices also get indexed on search engines too making it a force to reckon with.
Commonality of processes internationally
As people start travelling to different locations for treatment, it becomes imperative that the processes and protocols are standardized for ease of use. Common clinical protocols, training, and global compatibility of equipment could be the outcomes as people travel more for health related purposes.
Transparency
Patients need transparency to understand the service offerings and make choices. Independent audit bodies could take up the responsibility of auditing the content displayed by the multiple portals where hospital reported data is displayed and the data would be provided by the hospitals themselves
We as stakeholders in the domain will pass through pretty exciting times ahead. The roles we are playing will increase in its scope and changes in the domain will call for innovation and creation of new roles to support the requirements of the global healthcare marketplace
benosh@emedsol.biz
Monday, August 10, 2009
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Virtual Medical Tourism Ecosystem
- The Medical tourism ecosystem
Health tourism is not an unorganized sector any more. Any industry, as it grows, rules are set, formal channels of communications open up and regularity and formality sets in to the works. This is happening to the health tourism domain too. We see a good number of serious players entering the domain, bringing with it all important processes and protocols that shape the business.
With these objectives in mind e-Medsol has created an end to end software system that connects the various entities in the domain. We started off with creation of health tourism related portal integrating the health tourism activities of multiple hospitals in a country and from then on moved into creating end to end solutions in medical tourism.
The software is also envisioned to connect the hospitals to the health care facilitators globally. The health care facilitators will be able to connect to any hospital using the software thereby initiating and managing partnerships, referring patients to hospitals and managing their needs. The software even helps the health care facilitators to build their own website and has an access to a central content management system
Traditionally, you would have to buy software and then install and maintain these applications on your machine. e-MedSol works on delivery of software as a service model which means that you do not have to buy any software but can access software services over the net and use them to make your health tourism related services more effective without paying hefty upfront costs. Moreover e-medsol is a service entity in health tourism and will be a proactive partner for your business by adding more functionality in the software and supporting you with marketing.
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Medical tourism being a complex ecosystem with multiple role players across countries, interdependent software modules has been built for all the entities in the ecosystem.
The hospital - Setting business defaults into the system, that will govern your health tourism related business.
- Assessment of HCF s for partnerships based on multiple criteria
Initiating and managing partnerships with multiple health care facilitators globally - Creating new entities to market the hospital services and providing them with information and software resources
- Information percolation on key attributes which help HCF and the health tourist select the hospital as his destination of choice
- Communication streamlining between the health care facilitator, health tourist and the destination management team
- Case history management by treatment
- Public web interface connected to the software.
- Content management system
- Management information system
- Finance management and control system
Every doctor assigned gets an independent module for patient management
The health care facilitator
Schedule creation for the patient
Health tourist
- Case history form according to the treatment selected
- Submission of case histories to the doctor assigned
- Appointment confirmation
- Communication module with HCF and/or the hospital
- Selection of non medical resources required
- Travel details
- Schedule planner
Destination management
- The destination managers can be assigned by the hospitals
- The assigned destination manager gets a software to input the cost of non medical requirements
- The non medical requirements include Travel, hospitality and other non medical requirements
- Schedule creation and planning for the health tourist
- Expectations gathering from the health tourist, health care facilitator and hospital on the special needs of the patient
- Daily reports
For more details
Contact Dr Benosh Haris,COO, emedsol Pvt Ltd.
00919846170036
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