The Case on Globalization of Health Care

The Case on Globalization of Health Care discusses how the health care industry has always been thought to be immune to globalization and how that way of thinking is now changing. The quality of healthcare in the United States is ranked 37th worldwide, but as a percentage of GDP it is second! Healthcare spending in the U.S. is approximately 2.5 million, more than 4 times what is spent on national defense! Other countries have cut healthcare costs yet have higher quality medical care than in the United States. Our government continues to battle over healthcare, so many consumers and companies alike are taking matters into their own hands and looking at medical tourism as an option to reduce costs and improve quality of care. Medical Tourism is the rapidly-growing practice of travelling across international borders to obtain health care.

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One of the key issues to consider regarding medical tourism is the quality of care outside of the States, but as mentioned earlier we are ranked 37th worldwide! India has gained a reputation for cardiac care, Belgium for hip surgery, Korea for spine surgery. The list goes on and on and all countries are ranked higher for quality of care and perform treatment at a fraction of the cost in the U.S.

The Joint Commission is a not-for-profit private company that accredits hospitals in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and South America. This is the same company that accredits all U.S.hospitals. There are currently 271 hospitals outside of the U.S. that are accredited by this organization. Which means these international hospitals meet or exceed U.S. standards.

The initial course of action in the globalization of health care was with the interpretation of certain diagnostic tests such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The U.S. has a shortage of radiologists, so images can be sent via the internet to physicians in India and the scans can be interpreted overnight and resulted to the patient the next day.

The advantages to...