Evidence on global medical travel

Abstract

The potential benefits of travelling across national borders to obtain medical treatment include improved care, decreased costs and reduced waiting times. However, medical travel involves additional risks, compared to obtaining treatment domestically. We review the publicly-available evidence on medical travel. We suggest that medical travel needs to be understood in terms of its potential risks and benefits so that it can be evaluated against alternatives by patients who are seeking care. We propose three domains –quality standards, informed decision-making, economic and legal protection – in which better evidence could support the development of medical travel policies.

An evidence-based policy for improving choice in global health access through medical travel

“…Medical travel is the selective movement of patients beyond national borders to pursue medical treatment [1], representing a steadily growing sector in the global healthcare market.…”

“…Considering the evidence available in light of the patterns of behavior as well as challenges presented, a multi-year study covering multiple key aspects of medical travel was carried out by a large team of researchers from a number of countries (predominantly from Europe and North America) [1,9,10,11,12,14,16,17]. The largest of these studies involved a sophisticated decision-making instrument for assessing likelihood of travel that would have the potential to inform policy through validating the strongest predictions of behavior.…”

“…To ensure appropriate aspects were included in the measure and in the analyses, a systematic literature search was conducted across PubMed and Europe PubMed Central databases. This built on the existing evidence review published in 2015 [1]. The articles that were considered in the review included the terms "medical travel" or "medical tourism" in their title or abstract, were…”

“…characteristics (i.e., sex, age, education level and income level); previous experience with medical travelling; time spent living abroad, and perception of local healthcare (i.e., own healthcare quality, cost and waiting times). These domains were selected according to literature reviews [1,14].…”

The north-south policy divide in transnational healthcare: a comparative review of policy research on medical tourism in source and destination countries

“…A large number of medical tourists travel on ordinary tourist visas to avoid cumbersome bureaucratic procedures, keeping a significant portion of medical tourism activity outside the purview of policymakers who might otherwise find such information invaluable [18]. There are definitional variations and no standardized method for collating data on global medical travel [19]. National databases that serve to evaluate health policies and programs, do not typically capture information on the nature and quantum of transnational transactions in medical services.…”