Treatment Abroad newsletter: August 2007
 |
Medical Tourist Survey
Over 30 Treatment Abroad clients have agreed to participate in our online survey of medical tourists. The survey is currently in preparation and will be ready for launch by the end of the month. This will be the first ever in depth study of why people travel for treatment and their experience of treatment abroad.
A code of practice for medical tourism
As a business, we sit between patients seeking treatment and the healthcare providers and agencies who service those needs. We believe that a code of practice for medical tourism would benefit both patients and providers. We are therefore working on the Treatment Abroad Code of Practice for Medical Tourism; this code will establish guidelines which we feel are important to ensure the trust and confidence of patients in the medical tourism services that they use. It will not be a system of accreditation in terms of quality of care. We are contacting several clients for their input on this code. If you have any views, let us have them.
Video content on Treatment Abroad
Video is becoming an important medium on the internet. We intend to incorporate video content into the Treatment Abroad web site. This may take two forms:
- A client may wish to provide a short video for the site promoting their services. We will also offer a production service for those clients who do not have facilities.
- We intend to incorporate video patient stories. We will also offer a service whereby we will interview your patients on their return to the UK and produce the video patient story.
BBC news coverage
BBC Breakfast News and BBC World ran a recent news item on dental tourism to Croatia, featuring the Doblanovic Dental Practice and an interview with Keith Pollard, Managing Director of Treatment Abroad. Enquiries for dentistry abroad doubled in July!
A second Medical Tourism Association formed
Following the creation of the International Medical Travel Association (IMTA) earlier this year, a second organisation has been formed. The Medical Tourism Association (MTA). This new association has a US focus and hopes to establish standards for hospitals providing services for US citizens.
Forthcoming conferences
Keith Pollard will be speaking on medical tourism at the following conferences:
- Medical Tourism Seminar at World Travel Market 2007,13th November 2007, ExCel, London, England.
- Medical Tourism in the 21st Century, 4th December 2007, Sheffield, England.
- Medical Traveller Business Congress 2008, 25th - 27th January 2008, Malta.
- First European Congress on Health Tourism, 9th-11th April 2008, Munich, Germany.
We provide details of all forthcoming conferences on medical tourism at http://www.treatmentabroad.net/medical-tourism/conferences-events