Medical Tourism: Genesis, Growth and Strategic Management of its Components
Rishabh Chanana
Raghav Luthra
Anuj Arora
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Abstract
The dissertation explores the advantages and disadvantages of globalization of the international healthcare
market place facilitated by the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), a treaty of the World Trade
Organization with regard to the Medical Tourism Industry of India (MTI). Few multiple case studies of the
multi-specialty hospitals in India, namely Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, FortisEscorts Heart Institute, Fortis
Hospital and Hiranandani Hospital with in depth interviews of the senior healthcare managers have been
conducted. The parameters explored include the advent of medical tourism in these hospitals; the key growth
drivers; opportunities; challenges; business strategies adopted to attract international patients; countries
targeted; reasons for reverse brain drain of skilled professionals and flow of medical tourists to a developing
country like India.
The study indicates that available published literature is mostly focused on the flow of medical tourists from
western countries like the UK and USA to India, whereas primary research shows that the flow is primarily
from other catchment areas like the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC),
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and parts of Africa. A potential gap is observed between the
published data and the research conducted.
While the MTI holds abundant opportunities, there are potent challenges such as ethical and litigation issues,
post-operative complications upon return to the home country and public-private healthcare inequity due to
migration of skilled staff from the public to the private sector. There is an exigency of greater government
participation to give the medical tourism industry an infrastructure status aimed at making it as lucrative as
the Indian IT industry.
Keywords: international healthcare; the General Agreement; Medical Tourism Industry