J Travel Tour Mark. For example, according to data from theSouth Korea MOHW, after the passage of the Act in 2016, the inbound number of international patients increased to 364,189, and the total revenue from international patient care grew to 860.6 billion won, which represented an annual average growth of 48.2% [48]. Another country heavily investing in medical tourism is Singapore, which in 2003, established Singapore Medicine, a multi-agencygovernment-industry partnership designed to make Singapore an international medical hub [40]. However, lessons discussed in this review from the South Korean policy process, as well as other top destination countries, including Mexico, India, Thailand, and Malaysia, where policymaking is mostly focused on developing supply-side capacities and increasing competitiveness, often to the detriment of local and community health needs in absence of regulatory controls [56], should be acted upon with caution. In 2021, around 26.4 percent of foreigners who came to South Korea as medical tourists received medical treatments at departments of internal medicine. 2020;5:19. https://www.mohw.go.kr/eng/hs/hs0105.jsp? Further, in order to enable better provision of healthcare services for medical tourists, a new type of business entity called the medical tourism hotel business was created with the enactment of a Presidential decree through the Tourism Promotion Act on November 2013. Yu J, Lee TJ, Noh H. Characteristics of a medical tourism industry: the case of South Korea. A bilingual systematic review of South Korean medical tourism: a need to rethink policy and priorities for public health?. Medical treatment in South Korea: Immediate access to the top clinics and hospitals in South Korea for international patients. https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.2009.032789. Accessed 1 Feb 2021. Kim K-L, Seo B-R. Developmental strategies of the promotion policies in medical tourism industry in South Korea: a 10-year study (2009-2018). The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. Specifically, the Thai, Indian, and Singaporean governments have provided official government support for their medical tourism industries as part of a broader agenda of economic development and tourism expansion by way of various policy initiatives, including taking part in large international trade conferences and actively advertising the attractiveness of their respective medical tourism services [24, 29, 32]. 2019;16(24):4964. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16244964. A bibliometric analysis of the state of policy research on medical tourism. . Health Policy Plann. Iran J Public Health. Inherently there remains an underlining tension between medical tourism policy goals of economic growth and the need to maintain resilience and equity in domestic public health systems. This can consequently lead to greater privatization at the expense of public institutions, the third concern raised. Though verifiable data about medical tourism may be limited, several sources indicate that the main destinations for medical tourism are located in Asia [2, 7]. Specifically, the South Korean government analyzed the policy and economic strategies of Thailand, Singapore and India, major competitor countries in the sector, and reported findings in its 2011 Economic Policy Coordination Committee report titled Performance of and Promotion Measures for Medical Tourism Industry [39,40,41]. https://doi.org/10.1080/10941665.2012.658416. Studies were excluded if they were conducted or discussed medical tourism policy with a focus on other countries (e.g., Japan, the United States of America, Mongolia, etc. However, in 2017 the reported medical tourists dropped to 321,574, corresponding to a revenue drop of 26% from 2016 [49]. undefined. Asia Pac J Tour Res. when domestic healthcare workers leave rural areas to practice in areas with more coverage and higher income potential or when they leave public practice for private practice) to the more lucrative medical tourism market. Kim S, Lee J, Jung J. 2019. http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20190702000796. You-Sang K. Megatrends in Korean Healthcare. . South Korea has made effort continually to strengthen its medical tourism by applying IT knowledge to design the facilities and hospitals, also marketing its IT-medicine beyond the borders (15-17).Among 30 medical tourism destinations, this country ranked 17 th based on a variety of criteria ().. concluded that the Thai health system has suffered from a shortage and inequitable distribution of physicians due to shifts from public to private hospitals and that increased numbers of medical tourists are worsening this situation [38]. https://www.medicalkorea.or.kr/condition/history.do. This systematic review was carried out in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines [18], and was conducted in January 2021. However, the report did not highlight the potential consequences of deregulation of the sector, including concerns about maintaining quality of services, potential lack of oversight of private medical corporations and their intermediaries (e.g. Ritov I, Baron J. The results show that medical tourism demand is affected by the relative differences in medical quality, cost, and institutional quality, and the factors affecting inbound medical tourism demand of South Korea are different for each market. Although the number of healthcare professionals has continuously increased in response to growingdemand for healthcare services resulting from expanding health insurance coverage under UHC, the number of South Korean healthcare professionals is still below the average of other OECD countries [61]. Shin J, Lee YJ, Shin J-S, Lee J, Kim H, Kim M, et al. Reluctance to vaccinate: omission bias and ambiguity. For example, analysis under the Comprehensive Plan concluded that since the ratio of foreign patients (1% in 2014 and projected to increase to 3% in 2020) was relatively low, the South Korean medical infrastructure would be able to accommodate the increasing number of foreign patients without having a negative impact on domestic healthcare capacity. The main legislative elements of the Act were designed to address what was perceived as continued policy shortcomings that inhibited growth of the sector, particularly in the context of growth experienced by other regional destination countries (for a summary see Table4). Further, the need to establish international quality standards for international medical treatment, harmonizing legal, trade, migration and economic frameworks associated with multinational tourism services, and ensuring that patient choice is optimal for both domestic and tourism-seeking populations, continue to be critical concerns that need to be addressed by the broader global medical tourism industry [66,67,68]. 2020;16(1):37. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-020-00566-3. ABSTRACT. South Korea aims to boost its medical tourism industry as a key driver of future growth, with a target of attracting 700,000 foreign patients annually from 2027. Singapore has also signed agreements with Middle Eastern countries and has actively promoted information about its hospitals, competitive medical costs, and aligned tourism opportunities in order to attract prospective medical tourists to the country [55]. 2012;33(1):808. If comparable quantitative measures were uncovered across studies, the influence of publication bias was to be assessed using a funnel plot. Since the creation of the medical law for foreigners in 2009 the market has grown over 60% in average per year. The Korean Federation of Medical Activists Groups for Health Rights (KFHR), an organization that promotes human rights, the right to health, and the rights ofhealthcare workers (also supported bythe Association of Physicians for Humanism, Association of Korea Doctors for Health Rights, Korea Dentists Association for Health Society, andKorean Pharmacists for Democratic Society and Solidarity for Workers Health) has argued that investing in medical tourism could lead to commercialization of the national public health system. Published 2016. South Korea Targets a Surge in Medical Tourism to Reach 700,000 by 2027. by . Accessed 13 Apr 2020. Our review did not uncover RCTs for bias assessment using Cochrane Collaboration guidelines. There was a lack of studies, analytical or commentary-based, conducting in-depth analysis of the healthcare impact of these policies or comparing benefits and costs compared to other medical tourism destinations. Hunter WC. Iran J Public Health. Medical tourism is described as the practice of tourists electing to travel across international borders to receive some form of medical treatment in a country outside of their place of primary residence [1]. Bookman MZ, Bookman KR. https://www.mohw.go.kr/eng/hs/hs0105.jsp? J Health Commun. Dalen JE, Alpert JS. Google Scholar. This systematic review suggests that policy decisions may prioritize economic growth offered by medical tourism over negative effects on thehealthcare workforce, access and equity, and its potential to undermine Universal Health Coverage. In 2015, the distribution of foreign patients by nationality was Chinese (34%), US nationals (14%), Russians (7%), and Japanese (6%). Therefore, although a destination country gains economically from medical tourism (for example, in terms of increased GDP), it does not necessarily equate to gains for the overall healthcare system due to resulting healthcare workforce shortages, negative impact on availability of specialty care areas, and skewed tax benefits [38]. 2019;19(1):197. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-3965-9. Medical Tourism Magazine. 12% fewer medical tourists to South Korea in 2017. Articles not indexed in PubMed and JSTOR, as well as the results beyond the first 50 search results from Google search were not included in this study which could have impacted study results. Your US state privacy rights, In: Hall CM, editor. Dang H-S, Nguyen T-M-T, Wang C-N, Day J-D, Dang TMH. The Cochrane Collaboration risk of bias (RoB) tool was used to assess bias for any randomized controlled trials (RCTs) selected [19]. Prior to the passage of the Act, the number of foreign patients visiting South Korea increased from 60,201 in 2009 to 296,889 in 2015, with an annual growth rate of 30.5%, reflecting significant and promising growth [23, 38], which also benefited from the international popularity of Hallyu (Korean pop culture) [22]. Asia-Pac Biotech News. https://doi.org/10.1097/JHM-D-16-00016. ), articles that discussed other important medical issues in South Korea (e.g., HIV, Middle East respiratory syndrome, etc.) https://www.imtj.com/country/KR/#horizontalTab5. Additionally, we examined the grey literature using the Google search engine in both English and Korean language to supplement the scientific literature and carry out policy analysis of primary documents available online. Throw in endless sightseeing opportunities that blend ancient customs with cosmopolitan culture and the price is right in Seoul. Further, we limited our structured keyword searches using Boolean searches on PubMed and JSTOR to the title and abstract of articles, which may have limited the number of articles returned for review. Accessed 6 Feb 2021. 2020;17(3):961. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17030961. Accessed 13 Apr 2020. Accessed 13 Apr 2020. The primary aim of this study is to provide comprehensive implications for medical tourism in Korea. A cross-cultural study of perceptions of medical tourism among Chinese, Japanese and Korean tourists in Korea. 2016;34:44460. undefined; 2012. p. 240. The authors received no specific funding associated with this work. After review, seven articles were excluded based on a review of the focus of the paper after reviewing the abstract and then reviewing the full text. Thecollection of these policy recommendations by proponents in favor of increasing investment in medical tourism heavily focuses on deregulation and increasing access for foreign patients to South Korean health services despite potential negative impacts for domestic patient access. PubMed Central Google Scholar. In response to many of these challenges, Thailand has removed restrictions on recruiting international medical graduates, levied a tax on medical tourism services to fund its health systems, reviewed policies on long-stay tourism, and restricted tourists from using certain specialties [56]. McKinsey & Company; 2008. https://www.heal-wheel-india.com. Google Scholar. Accessed 13 Apr 2020. Two years after the Act, in May 2018, the government launched the Enforcement Plan to Support Overseas Expansion of Healthcare System and Attraction of International Patients 2018 (the Enforcement Plan). 2018;47:107783. 2020;49(2):26773. This distorts healthcare expenditures and can lead to cream skimming, where rich patients with better access and ability to pay gain greater access to healthcare services at the expense of patients who already lacked access, potentially worsening existing health disparities [60]. undefined. Welfare M of H&. J Travel Med. The main motivations for this movement of millions of patients globally are broadly classified as seeking better-qualitycare, lower cost of services, and quicker access, all factors that are impacted by macro policy issues such as the individual freedom of persons to seek treatment overseas, lack of binding legal frameworks on medical tourism, cross-border arrangements (such as immigration and trade agreements), and patient ethical and privacy issues [2,3,4,5]. Get in touch with us. Quality in health care and globalization of health services: accreditation and regulatory oversight of medical tourism companies. 2017;46(7):9307. Patients beyond borders: Everybodys guide to affordable, world-class medical travel. Rokni L, Park S-H, Avci T. Improving medical tourism services through human behaviour and cultural competence. In conjunction with the Medical Service Act, in January 2009, the South Korean government announced the New Growth Engine: Vision and Strategy plan. 2014;21(6):4107. PubMed Central Correspondence to South Korea continues to examine ways to further amend the Act and grow this sector, but these actions should be taken with caution by critically examining how other countries have adapted their policymaking based on the real-world costs associated with medical tourism. 2011;28(8):85672. Accessed 13 Apr 2020. This redistribution is inherently difficult given a non-redistributive tax system, a largely foreign-owned medical tourism sector, and the potential negative impacts of deregulation or possible presence of corruption. There are many reasons as to why South Korea promotes medical tourism, as explained in the research on the rise of foreign medical tourists since 2009. Book The partnership is aimed at building key international collaborations in healthcare, securing investments in its medical . Int J Hosp Manag. In contrast to public health financing through national health insurance, healthcare delivery is quite dependent on the private sector despite some public health facilities available for poorer and disadvantaged populations at the local level [61]. In 2012, 11.1 million foreign tourists visited South Korea, making it the 20th most visited country in the world, and the 5th most visited in Asia. Yonhap. Crucially, this could create knowledge gaps in how we understand the pros and cons of this industry and further limit the ability to generate evidence-based policymaking in favor of public health-centered outcomes. Among these countries, a number of these key destinations are countries in Asia that have instituted aggressive policy initiatives seeking to promote medical tourism as a critical part of their national economic development strategy (see Table6 for summary). 2016. http://www.mohw.go.kr/react/jb/sjb030301vw.jsp? Due to varying update cycles, statistics can display more up-to-date Check the 46 destinations. Nearly half of all foreign medical tourists visiting Korea last year were motivated as a consequence of their interest in the country's popular and dynamic culture, according to a survey, Sunday. KIET analyzed Japan and Chinas increasing efforts to promote medical tourism, such as Chinas designation of the Shanghai International Medical Zone and Japans national support of medical tourism as a key future industrial sector, as major emerging threats [62]. Accessed 10 Feb 2021. In addition to Google keyword searches, we also reviewed and examined documents from select South Korean government websites (Ministry of Health and Welfare, Korea Tourism Organization), which contained information specific to the legislative process and policy language of the Act, the Plan, and the Enforcement Plan. CAS The rationale for this ongoing support was reflected in an official 2014 brief titled Medical Globalization, the Benefits Go to Citizens, where the MOHW argued the following: The benefits of medical globalization go back to all people. Accessed 13 Apr 2020. As part of the project, the Korea Tourism Organization, partnered with the Medical Tourism Association, the world's leading medical travel expert, to expand healthcare offerings to a wider international patient base. Article Importantly, countries like Thailand rely heavily on traditional forms of tourism and recognize the strong economic potential of the related medical tourism industry to contribute to overall economic growth. Being a full one-stop medical service provider, now, we are also a "beauty consulting & tourism company . The majority of literature focused on the legislative history of South Koreas pro-medical tourism policy, economic considerations associated with industry growth, and the specific experiences of medical tourists. Although national governments are expected to play a critical role in regulating the private healthcare sector (including the medical tourism industry), state interventions or remedial actions by the South Korean government that have been implemented thus far appear to be minimal. Hence, despite the South Korean governments effort to promote medical tourism for the past decade, its performance appears to fall behind other major medical tourism destinations in the region. Reflecting a bigger push by the South Korean government to officially promote its domestic medical tourism industry, the entire industrial sector was promoted via a dedicated government sponsored website called VISIT MEDICAL KOREA (http://english.visitmedicalkorea.com/english/pt/index.do) operated by the Korea Tourism Organization and KHIDI. https://doi.org/10.1111/jtm.12147. Similar to other top destination countries for medical tourism, the collection of supporting policies spanning the Act, the Comprehensive Plan, and the Enforcement Plan enacted by the South Korean government has brought some economic benefit to the country and may similarly motivate other countries to pursue investment in this sector. In this study, we aimed to have a historical investigation on how infectious diseases have affected the tourism industry in Korea, to reach practical implications for managing the medical tourism sector. There was an overall lack of studies, analytical or commentary-based, that conducted an in-depth analysis of the healthcare impact of these policies or comparing their benefits or costs to other medical tourism destinations. OECD; 2011. https://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/48723982.pdf. South Korea's name is entwined with advanced and cutting edge technology. Int J Environ Res Pu. It also estimated additional added value through the creation of 80,000 jobs and other related medical tourism economic stimulus of 4000 billion won ($3.30 billion) through 20172021 [47]. Virani A, Wellstead AM, Howlett M. Where is the policy? RESERVE Choose your medical procedures and get ready for Korea 3. PAR_MENU_ID=03&MENU_ID=0319&CONT_SEQ=337640&page=1. Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: the PRISMA statement. Glob Health. PubMed Status of Inbound International Patients. Nearly half of international patients who sought medical treatment in South Korea last year were influenced by the appeal of Korean culture, a survey from the Korea Health Industry Development . Rokni L, Avci T, Park SH. www.training.cochrane.org/handbook. Park J-K, Ahn J, Han S-L, Back K-J, An M. Exploring internal benefits of medical tourism facilitators satisfaction: customer orientation, job satisfaction, and work performance. PubMed This text provides general information. Accessed 13 Apr 2020. World Health organization; 2013. https://www.who.int/global_health_histories/seminars/kelley_presentation_medical_tourism.pdf. Hence, analysis of the Comprehensive Plan finds that it primarily lists positive economic benefits of medical tourism yet lacks an in-depth assessment of how the sector will affect public healthcare capacity should foreign patients increase in the numbers needed to generate significant national economic benefit. Med Decis Mak. Lack of standardized approaches across selected studies presented challenges in assessing the potential influence of bias on the cumulative evidence for this body of literature. https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.3960030404. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000097. The impact of global infectious diseases, including MERS, and COVID-19, on the tourism industry was studied in South Korea. Kwon S, Lee T, Kim C. Republic of Korea health system review. We are one of the few government-approved medical tourism agencies in South Korea. 2009;6(7):e1000097. The creation of a higher-paying privatized market with insufficient regulation can cause healthcare providers to shift from treating patients in the lower-paying public health sector. The databases PubMed and JSTOR were searched for articles published in English and Korean languages published before January 18, 2021, using the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) unique ID term Medical Tourism (ID: D057193) with Korea (ID: D007723). Given South Koreas heavy reliance on the private sector for healthcare service provisioning, the possibility of a two-tiered system emerging that disproportionately prioritizes resource allocation for medical tourism patients compared to the general public should be recognized as a critical concern in future policymaking [31]. Accessed 13 Apr 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2015.1018574. Otherwise, the health needs and wellbeing of South Koreas own citizens will likely be compromised along with national goals of maintaining UHC [56]. 1994;272(2):1336. These remedial responses by other countries are critical policy lessons and tools that the South Korean government should consider in future medical tourism policymaking. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2018.06.022. We are happy to help. Moher D, Liberati A, Tetzlaff J, Altman DG, Group TP. Asia Pac J Tour Res. Overall, 14 journal articles (see Table1) and 9 websites (see Table2) were eligible for inclusion in the study. Hence, the objective of this systematic review is to summarize the different economic and public health impacts of South Koreas pro policy stance on supporting its medical tourism sector. Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Tim K. Mackey. South Korea. aesthetic, cosmetic and dental treatment) [6]. Domestic promotion of medical tourism can also lead destination country governments to shift already scarce public healthcare resources away from essential services and benefits towards more resource-intensive activities in order to compete for the business of foreign patients, given that the medical tourism industry primarily competes on quality and price [38, 41, 54]. Senior Management Team. For example, the success of the Thai medical tourism private sector, such as Bumrungrad Hospital, has encouraged the government to increase government involvement [30, 40, 53]. Published January 29, 2015. Seoul Guide Medical - Korea's Largest Medical Tourism Provider SEOUL GUIDE MEDICAL Beauty and Medical Service at its Finest How It Works 1. Implications for the medical tourism sector in South Korea during the pandemic . Wong KM, Musa G. Medical Toursm in Asia: Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and India. The report by Korean Institute of Hospital Management (KIHM) also requested that the government change the limit on the number of beds for foreign patients in tertiary hospitals by increasing the ratio from 5 to 10%. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2011.02.002. Cite this article. PubMed To continue to support and promote the Thai medical tourism industrys growth, several policy initiatives have been implemented by the government including simplification of visa procedures in order to facilitate easy entry of foreign patients, tax incentives for investment in health care facilities for medical tourists, and efforts to attract foreign patients through international advertising [14, 40]. Nearly 400,000 medical tourists visited South Korea in 2013, a number which was projected to rise to 1 million by 2020. For example, Singapore has attempted to address the issue of internal brain drain by recruiting high quality healthcare workers from other neighboring countries and offering competitive salaries, training and career development opportunities [56]. Vol 5. Global Heal Res Policy. This was followed by medical. Int J Equity Health. https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/medical-tourism-market. In order to better understand the policy rationale for South Koreas activities in promoting its medical tourism industry, we also conducted a descriptive assessment of the policies of other top Asian medical tourism destinations in our grey literature review. Privacy However, there is limited literature discussing medical tourism policy specific to the experience of South Korea, despite the fact that the country offers an important case study for this topic. 2019;132(1):910. Korea aims to ease immigration procedures to attract more international patients who visit the country to undergo medical treatment or receive cosmetic surgery. Also, we made subjective assessment of inclusion of articles based on relevance to South Korean medical tourism policy per our inclusion and exclusion criteria, which could have impacted results, but we also note that whenwe conducted keyword searches on general text of eacharticle, very few directly addressed or were relevant to South Koreas medical tourism policy. BMC Health Serv Res. Staffers there to greet incoming travelers can usually speak at least . After removing duplicate results, we retrieved 32 unique English and 38 Korean websites that were then reviewed for relevance and inclusion in this study. The Singaporean government helped their domestic hospitals to secure international accreditation that can help attract foreign patients as it provides an additional measure of healthcare quality and regulatory oversight [15]. Regional competitive market forces are also at play, with strong competition from existing Asian country competitors. 2023 BioMed Central Ltd unless otherwise stated. Park J, Ahn J, Yoo WS. Terms and Conditions, 1990;3(4):26377. However, only two years after the Act, the adjusted plan (i.e., the Enforcement Plan) retargeted the projected goals by substantially lowering initial estimates anticipating an influx of new foreign patients. Singapore has also reversed its policy position on promoting public sector participation in medical tourism, shifting to restrict public hospitals from marketing to foreign patients to address shortages of hospital beds [56]. The medical tourists in South Korea may expect the best medical services in the world. BMC Public Health 21, 658 (2021). 2015;20(6):7207. Korean Federation of Medical Activists Groups for Health Rights, Korea Health Industry Development Institute, Korea Institute for Industrial Economics & Trade, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.