Nowadays, Singapore, Thailand, and some Asian countries including India and Middle East nations have been making their policies of over seas medical tourism aggressively in order to be an oversea medical tourism hub representing their region. Korean g...
Nowadays, Singapore, Thailand, and some Asian countries including India and Middle East nations have been making their policies of over seas medical tourism aggressively in order to be an oversea medical tourism hub representing their region. Korean government also expects the overseas medical tourism is going to be huge portion of Korean tourism industry, which has grown constantly.
They have opened supported policies for the overseas medical tourism, such as making good environment for foreign patients by reforming the medical policy. To support Korean government policy, local governments, medical industries, travel industries, and other related industries have boosted themselves ardently to hold more overseas medical tourists.
Moreover, Korean oversea medical tourism is expected to have a faster progress rate than rival countries by a reason why their start is later than their competitors. The rapid development of the overseas medical tourism could make not only both more job opportunities and more added values, but also cut chronic deficit by reinforcing the fundamental competitiveness. However, to invite more overseas medical tourists, Korean government needs to mediate limits of legal permission for both medical Institutions and travel agencies.
Furthermore, upgrading internationally certificated medical facilities which is relatively weak, the deficient bridge product for the tourists and the lacking proper service by travel agents, and the weak governmental support are remaining challenges.
Although a high level medical service, an inexpensive medical expense, a safe and sanitary hospital environment, specialized sightseeing attraction in comparison to other competitors, and relatively short flight time from Southeast Asia are good advantages of South Korea as the place of the overseas medical tourism, it has been a beginning level still.
Therefore, this research paper has written for several reasons, for instance, discussing the problems of oversea medical tourism, making and proposing attractable both policies and programs for the overseas medical tourists. To activate an overseas medical tourism, the following 3 kinds of the aspect are important.
First, a simplified an entry procedure for overseas medical tourists as an institutional aspect, a financial support for them, and a promotion of foreign private hospital are necessary.
Second, for a management aspect, domestic medical institutions need to get JCI (Joint Commission International) and also continuous marketing support for the overseas medical tourism, a management of integrated support center for the overseas medical tourism are crucial as the governmental policies.
Third, creating a specialized product for luxurious tourists, operating a survey of patients’ satisfaction and supporting education system for medical steps, and helping foreign patients to use their domestic insurance claim are available as the operating aspect.
As a result, the web portal service, oversea medical tourism integrated system, educational supporting system, reorganized hospital homepage, and etc are necessary from the research to activate the overseas medical tourists by IT.
Finally, the oversea medical tourism will be activated in South Korea only if an international reputation of domestic hospitals is ensured, and Korean medical institutions do the best effort for giving a trust to the patients as a matter of fact.