Medical Tourism : Global Outlook and Indian Scenario Book

Contents: Preface. Acronyms. 1. Tourism: a brief introductory overview. 2. Medical tourism: a global outlook. 3. Impacts of tourism and recreation: a policy perspective. 4. Hospitals, patient safety and healthcare programmes. 5. Medical tourism in India: a global comparison. 6. Healthcare in India and related tourism activities. 7. Promoting medical tourism in India: holiday and hospital packages approach. 8. Medical tourism: conclusion and recommendation. Glossary. Bibliography. Index.

"Medical tourism has been defined and explained briefly in all its forms and functionalities. A service approach has been followed while discussing the industry of medical tourism and public health. The phenomenon involving rapid growth in medical tourism at a worldwide levels has been explained briefly with famous and successful case studies from America, South-East Asia including Thailand, Malaysia, South Africa, Bardados, etc. The issues related to health tourism, health facilities and alternative healthcare and covered in detail while presenting the aforementioned case studies. Both a service industry perspective and an understanding of the darker side of medical tourism are presented. Besides, a policy perspective on impact of tourism and recreation is given, particularly with reference to local economic development and national development. The book also reflects briefly on tourism’s potential as a sustainable development strategy with special reference to the Washington declaration. One of the most important stakeholders in medical tourism is hospital. That is why its infrastructure, its services, precautionary measure and safety provisions become that very important. Besides giving general description about hospital, this book talks about the modern hospital information systems, national patient safety goals, with particular reference to the safety issues related to transport of critically ill patients." (jacket)