• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.391-397
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• 2014

This paper is concerned with medical tourism, which is expected to become the new growth engine of the 21st century. Medical tourism is a collaborative and synergistic composition of Healthcare and Tourism, and has led to a remarkable growth in 2012 since the year 2009, exhibiting huge growth potential. This paper reviews the emerging market of the medical tourism with five major hospitals in Korea from the perspective of medical tourists, and makes suggestions for the global health care and the sustainable development in Korean medical tourism as a growth market: the construction of websites for active services and transparent management of medical expenses with proper arrangement of medical consulting and advices, cooperation of the health care center and the medical tourism industry, and the activation of healthcare communication. For the smooth progress of medical tourism, this paper suggests two separate communication channels: one for the patient tourists and the other for the medical tourism coordinators. The former needs accuracy with professional knowledge on the healthcare and communication, which should be classified as medical interpreters working with disease-oriented medical tourists. The latter refers to international medical coordinators dedicated to the smooth progress of medical tourism and services. This paper also points out the creative efforts to improve the relatively poor infrastructure of tourism industry to accommodate the medical tourists, and improve the medical tourism industry.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.9 no.8
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• pp.102-109
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• 2019

Despite of advanced plans from Korean government to encourage Korean medical tourism, the medical tourism in Korea is still under competitive compared to the countries including Thailand, Singapore, and India, in which the government has been driving the development in industries of medical tourism, Moreover, the studies identifying the factors affecting tourists' satisfaction has not been actively performed up to date. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the influences of quality of medical service, accessibility, cost adequacy, and quality of tourism of Korean medical tourism on Chinese tourists' satisfaction and revisit intention. For the purpose of empirical study, a survey has been conducted to Chinese medical tourists. Findings are as follows. First, the factors of medical tourism attributes including quality of medical service, cost adequacy, and quality of tourism have turned out to have positive effects on medical tourists' satisfaction. Second, tourists' satisfaction has a positive effect on revisit intention.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.165-190
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• 2010

Objectives : This study was supposed to investigate factors which influence to preference of medical tourism products of Japanese tourists in Seoul, Korea. Methods : Data were collected from 228 Japanese tourists who visited' Seoul Center for Culture & Tourism' in Myeong-dong, Seoul, Korea. We measured factors which influence to preference for medical tourism. The data were analyzed by T-test, ANOVA, and multiple regression analysis. Results : The major findings were as follows ; Japanese tourists preferred medical products in the order of skin care, oriental medicine treatment, health screening, and scaling & teeth whitening. They considered technical level of medical staff most importantly, followed by safety of medical products, communication during diagnosis and treatment, follow-up service, modernization of medical facilities and equipment, and the reasonable medical expenses. Japanese tourists' preferred medical institutions in the order of a university hospital, a specialty clinic, a special hospital, They said they intend to pay 50,000 to 150,000 yen for medical tourism. The preference to medical tourism products are that single women group in their twenties and thirties for skin care, married people group aged over thirties preferred oriental medicine treatment, and married men aged over forties and high income earners favored health screening. Conclusions : It should be considered carefully that the preference exists on some factors especially for Japanese tourist. Further research about preference on medical tourism products for tourists from the other countries is required appropriately to fulfill the needs.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.59-73
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• 2013

Healthcare costs are continuously increasing due to longer life expectancy and providing global healthcare services through medical tourism is new service growth engine for Korea. Several countries have well established programs and infrastructure dedicated to medical tourism. South Korea is attempting to become a major player in this domain by undertaking broad initiatives. The success of medical tourism is greatly impacted by easy access to two types of information, namely, medical and travel information. The National Health Insurance System in Korea collects huge amount of clinical and financial information from all hospitals. However, this information does not get used effectively in health and travel information systems to support medical tourism. This paper provide clear process map of medical tourism to understand how the patient and information process both medical and tourism fields also describe the need of customer and service provider. In this paper, we develop a medical tourism service system that will promote information exchange and service delivery.

• International Journal of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.98-103
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• 2018

Globally, medical tourism draws attention as a national growth engine industry, and is actively expanding. Current medical tourism leans towards large hospitals making it difficult to attract new users. Users collect the information for medical tourism through various paths in order to receive medical consultations and customized tour services. To expand medical tourism to small and medium sized hospitals, it is necessary to have customized medical consultations, tours and interpreter services, which are the key elements of medical tourism. This paper suggests services that users can use to match medical consultations and find tours and interpreters they want at the same time. This paper suggests ways to provide integrated services based on the information experienced by users, combining the required items from the perspectives of each user, hospital and guide. To match the content provided by hospitals and guides with experience information from users systematically, this study suggests the convergence plan for a service model that can match the experience information between users and hospitals, between users and guides and between hospitals and guides systematically by operating the data in the universal container.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.89-98
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• 2023

Purpose: This study proposes preventive strategies for factors affecting the work impairment of international medical tourism coordinators. Methods: Data for this study were collected via an online questionnaire survey involving 296 international medical tourism coordinators in South Korea, considering the impact coronavirus disease 2019. The survey was conducted from 25th April 2022 to 22nd July 2022 and data were analyzed SPSS/WINdows software version 22, including statistical, reliability, factor and regression analyses. Results: This study focused on occupational stress, health problems and job efficacy among international medical tourism coordinators in medical tourism research. The main objective was to examine the factors that influenced their work impairment. Conclusion: This study emphasizes the importance of factors such as occupational stress, health problems and job efficacy in influencing work impairment among international medical tourism coordinators. The identified factors account for 30% of explanation power. An intervention program tailored to the characteristics of domestic and international medical tourism coordinators is recommended.

• Journal of Korean Clinical Health Science
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.59-71
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• 2014

Purpose. Medical tourism is recently becoming a new industry with great growth potential. The South Korean government is shifting medical tourism from simple cultural tourism to a high value-added industry with a new paradigm. Methods. The government has been providing positive support and marketing policies since the introduction of the article concerning foreign patient attraction to the medical law in 2009, and various types of medical institutions around the country has participated actively in medical tourism by themselves or in cooperation of government bodies and made increasingly greater performance. Results. This study obtained the following results. The medical institutions in Korea have been making efforts to see more development and profitability in diverse ways, including medical tourism for foreign patients and the advance of the Korean medical institutions into foreign markets. However, many local governing bodies and medical institutions participating in medical tourism around the country have primarily focused on examination and treatment on the basis of foreign patients' visit to South Korea and rarely built a medical network with other countries directly for medical tourism. This study presents a case of building a local medical network and a network for international medical tourism successfully on the basis of the local medical association, CMP, which has been formed naturally in Busan. The success factors for CMP included 1) enthusiasm of the official in charge; 2) the medical level, the service level, and open-mindedness of participant medical institutions; 3) cost efficiency due to executive office management with no costs, no conflicts, and constant partnership; 4) security of non-competitive expertise for participants; 5) local factors of CMP; 6) participation of good agencies; 7) reinforcement of participation networks; and 8) post facto management and local doctor management. Conclusions. Its positive effects included patient introduction and greater profitability on an internal basis as well as construction of the collaboration system with the institutions related to medical tourism and confidence. However, there are some limitations: it is still difficult to predict performance due to the short period of their activities, and it is necessary to continue to observe their constant activities since a single medical association was involved.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.75-87
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• 2012

Objectives : This study was performed to investigate the knowledge on contacting experiences to foreign patients, the equipments and requirements to make the vitalization method for the oriental medical tourism for foreign patients. Methods : We adopted the focusing group interviews on the oriental medical doctors, nurses and personnels who had the experiences to deal with the oriental medical tourism. Results : For 3 parts, translation into each country's language in program, hospital information, treatment information and homepage should be done and consideration into each country's culture is very important part to know medical tourism patients and prepare the adequate products, and lastly the translater or medical coordinator plays a very important role to connect the hospital personnels with medical tourism patients. Conclusions : Translation in to each country's language concerning medical tourism material and understanding on one's country's culture and a medical coordinator are very important constituents for a successful medical tourism.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.25 no.10
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• pp.249-253
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• 2020

Medical tourism refers to visiting overseas to receive medical services and tourism at the same time. In other words, it can be said that it is a tourism activity that combines medical service, various cultural activities, leisure, and shopping. As such, medical tourism is not limited to simple medical services, but is a new high-value-added industry that creates new profits by fusion with tourism services. Many countries are making continuous efforts to foster their own tourism industry by attracting foreign tourists. Therefore, in order to secure competitiveness in dental services among the medical tourism industry in Korea, this study was to examine the relationship between dentist's treatment, hospital facilities, dental staff, and patient satisfaction. As a result, it was found that the dentist's treatment had a positive effect on both the staff of the dental facility in the hospital and the satisfaction of the patient.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.13 no.7
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• pp.403-412
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• 2015

In this study, IPA(Importance-Performance Analysis) techniques were used to suggest improvement plans and implications for convergent medical tourism services which medical tourists can be satisfied in Medical institutions. For this study, a total of 244 questionnaires among collected data for customers who experience a medical tourism service (a health checkup) at four hospitals located in Gangneung, Gangwon Province from September 1, 2014 to October 30, 2014 was to ensure a valid sample. As a result of the experiments which conducted by paired sample t-test analysis to learn corresponding to the difference between importance and satisfaction of the medical tourism services, it shows significant differences in all entries In the importance and satisfaction of the medical tourism services. As a result of the experiments which conducted by the IPA, the importance is high awareness but among service items which satisfaction is not actually high, service items that requires intensive care in the future are derived in items of "exact medical tourism services", "rapid response to the needs of the patient", "rapid medical tourism services", "communication with medical tourism coordinator". Therefore, medical institutions may need to be arranged in the Medical Tourism Coordinator with the agility and expertise of the medical tourism.