Vol: 6, Issue: 4 2016

Page: 26-59

Medical Tourism: Genesis, Growth and Strategic Management of its Components

Rishabh Chanana, Raghav Luthra, Anuj Arora

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.