In order to completely understand the concept of medical tourism one needs to be aware of terms associated with it. If Medical Tourism is “the set of activities in which a person travels often long distance or across the border to avail medical services with direct or indirect engagement in tourism activities” the person who travels to avail medical service is called “medical tourist” or “Medical Traveler”. The organization that provides healthcare services to the traveler or patient is called “Medical tourism provider” or a “Global Healthcare Provider”. The company or agency that provides support services to facilitate such arrangements is known as a “Medical Tourism Facilitator”. All these activities, components and entities are referred as “Medical Tourism industry”.
Medical Tourism is often interchanged with the terms “Medical Travel”, ‘Health Travel” “Healthcare Travel” “Health Tourism” and “Global Healthcare”. Although each term has a specific meaning, they all fall into the description of individuals travelling abroad for any type of medical, quasi-medical or health treatment. It also describes the growing global industry of healthcare professionals, clinics and hospitals who are marketing themselves to overseas patients.
I have recently conducted a survey based on the terms and trends of medical tourism and invited leading medical tourism experts to participate in the research. The preferred term for 85% respondents for this particular sector of the healthcare industry is ‘Medical Tourism,’ with 35% selecting this option. ‘Global Healthcare’ was the next most popular term at 22%, with ‘Health Tourism’ running a close third at 21%. ‘Medical Travel’ was identified by 10% of respondents as their preferred description, with ‘Healthcare Travel’ and ‘Value Medical Travel’ both at 6%. (Survey available at www.DrPrem.com)
Note: In Dr Prem’s Guidebook – Medical Tourism, we have used the term “medical tourism” as a generalized term that could be interchanged with similar terms such as “Medical Travel” “Health Tourism” or “Healthcare Travel”.
