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Medical tourism presents healthcare alternative

Healthcare options continue to expand for patients, be they U.S. citizens outsourcing treatment or foreign patients coming to America.

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Perhaps it's a bit too soon to speculate on the potential packaging ramifications of “medical tourism,” but it's important to stay abreast of the latest developments in medical treatment in today's ever-changing healthcare climate.

A press release that arrived in my e-mail inbox March 22 came from Ilan Pillai, founder of Hoboken, NJ-based iElixir. The release said, “According to a recent ABC news release, an estimated 550,000 Americans travelled abroad last year to take care of their medical needs. That number is projected to grow rapidly in the coming years.” An ABC News video describes medical tourism as a growing trend, for more than cosmetic surgery. One example mentioned in the video was heart bypass surgery, which the report said cost about $100,000, versus $7,000 in India.

iElixir's Web site says the company provides “listings of accredited hospitals, professional medical tourism facilitators, and medical procedures offered from around the word.” It allows patients to compare pricing, and describes how the process works. Although iElixir currently focuses on U.S. patients seeking care abroad (outbound tourism), “inbound” tourists from non-U.S. consumers seeking care in America is also in the company's plans.

Also referred to as medical travel or health tourism by Wikipedia, medical tourism has at least one association, the Medical Tourism Assn., whose 4th World Medical Tourism & Global Healthcare Congress will be held Oct. 25 - 28 in Chicago. On the “Surveys, Quotes” section of its Web site, MTA notes, “Deloitte estimates that as many as 1.6 million Americans could be traveling in 2012 for Medical Tourism spending billions of dollars.”

The possibilities of that many outbound (and potential) inbound medical tourists raises questions related to safety issues, regulatory and legal matters, and packaging materials and processes for what one person interviewed in the ABC News video called “a global hospital.”

Just when we thought we'd “seen everything” when encountering a Solantic Walk-In Urgent care center at Orlando (FL) International Airport, it's apparent we're about to see much more in the healthcare sector.

-Jim Butschli, Editor, Healthcare Packaging
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