Medical Tourism Medical tourism is a much more common practice today for receiving affordable health care services. As the cost of health care continues to rise in the United States, increased numbers of potential patients are flocking to other countries to receive affordable health care services. While medical tourism might affect the financial posterity of your health care organization, it too might be a reflection of an industry's commitment to fostering increased access to affordable health care services. From your perspective as a current or future health care administration leader, is medical tourism a social good? For this Discussion, reflect on the media pieces in this week's resources, which highlight medical tourism. Consider the potential benefits and consequences of medical tourism from both a consumer and a health care administration leader's perspective. With these thoughts in mind: Post an explanation of how the role of medical tourism might relate to social change. Be specific, and provide examples for both the consumer and the health care administration leader. Discussion Continue the Discussion and respond to your colleagues' posts (250 words or more), suggesting one challenge your colleague should consider in addressing medical tourism for his or her health care organization. Colleague As a healthcare administrator, I will have to consider the potential physical and mental risks first of medical tourism for consumers. I have looked for enough evidence-based research to help me to decide that this would be a choice that I would recommend. However, I did not find what I was looking for to say that I would without reservation and good judgment recommend a client to fly to India or Costa Rica for major surgery. I understand that the cost is so much less for various surgeries and companies and clients can save tons of money (ABC News (Producer), 2013).   I understand that this country’s expensive healthcare prices are driving patients and companies to participate in traveling outside of the country for medical procedures. “Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) put the price of a knee replacement in the U.S. at $48,000. Travel to India and the same operation will cost $8500, more than 80% cheaper. A heart bypass that costs $113,000 in the U.S. can be bought for just $3250 in Mexico, while operations in Malaysia are typically 65-80% cheaper” (Lunt, Smith, Exworthy, Green, Horsfall, & Mannion, 2011). So, I see that the cost of healthcare is causing many Americans to file bankruptcy and America pays too much for a healthcare system that is not working. Also, companies who are not at the Fortune 500 status would like to find a way to save money on employee benefits. Therefore, I would say my thoughts on getting on board with this would be when another country has a life-saving procedure that cannot be performed in this country for various reasonings like a personal moral view of a political party in charge ...

1. Medical Tourism
Medical tourism is a much more common practice today for
receiving affordable health care services. As the cost of health
care continues to rise in the United States, increased numbers of
potential patients are flocking to other countries to receive
affordable health care services. While medical tourism might
affect the financial posterity of your health care organization, it
too might be a reflection of an industry's commitment to
fostering increased access to affordable health care services.
From your perspective as a current or future health care
administration leader, is medical tourism a social good?
For this Discussion, reflect on the media pieces in this week's
resources, which highlight medical tourism. Consider the
potential benefits and consequences of medical tourism from
both a consumer and a health care administration leader's
perspective.
With these thoughts in mind:
Post an explanation of how the role of medical tourism might
relate to social change. Be specific, and provide examples for
both the consumer and the health care administration leader.
Discussion
Continue the Discussion and respond to your colleagues' posts
(250 words or more), suggesting one challenge your colleague
should consider in addressing medical tourism for his or her
health care organization.
Colleague
As a healthcare administrator, I will have to consider the
potential physical and mental risks first of medical tourism for
consumers. I have looked for enough evidence-based research to
help me to decide that this would be a choice that I would
recommend. However, I did not find what I was looking for to
say that I would without reservation and good judgment

2. recommend a client to fly to India or Costa Rica for major
surgery. I understand that the cost is so much less for various
surgeries and companies and clients can save tons of money
(ABC News (Producer), 2013).
I understand that this country’s expensive healthcare prices are
driving patients and companies to participate in traveling
outside of the country for medical procedures. “Organization for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) put the price
of a knee replacement in the U.S. at $48,000. Travel to India
and the same operation will cost $8500, more than 80% cheaper.
A heart bypass that costs $113,000 in the U.S. can be bought for
just $3250 in Mexico, while operations in Malaysia are
typically 65-80% cheaper” (Lunt, Smith, Exworthy, Green,
Horsfall, & Mannion, 2011). So, I see that the cost of healthcare
is causing many Americans to file bankruptcy and America pays
too much for a healthcare system that is not working. Also,
companies who are not at the Fortune 500 status would like to
find a way to save money on employee benefits.
Therefore, I would say my thoughts on getting on board with
this would be when another country has a life-saving procedure
that cannot be performed in this country for various reasonings
like a personal moral view of a political party in charge of
stopping the legalization of a procedure, drug, or process suc h
as the case was with stem cells years ago. I would give a patient
the option to a life saving proven surgery that is only performed
internationally. I would also highly work with insurance
companies to offer an affordable international private medical
insurance plan. This can work if it is a collaborative effort with
policymakers, the healthcare industry, the airline industry, and
companies.
References
ABC News (Producer). (2013). US companies look to ‘medical
tourism’ to cut costs
[Video file].
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovdU5huFLDY
Lunt, N., Smith, R., Exworthy, M., Green, S., Horsfall, D., &

3. Mannion, R. (2011). Medical
tourism: Treatments, markets and Health system
implications: A scoping review.
OECD. www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/48723982.pdf
Consumer-Driven Health Care
As a current or future health care executive, it is important to
weigh the variety of things that consumers consider when
making the decision to subscribe to health services offered by
your health care organization. For what are your consumers
looking, and what drives them to choose your health care
organization? What are some of the items on which you need to
reflect that consumers will use to drive their decision to utilize
your health services?
For this Discussion, review the resources for this week and
reflect on those considerations consumers keep in mind when
selecting a health care organization to meet their health care
needs. Think about what aspects of health care delivery in your
health care organization, or one with which you are familiar,
might be considered most important for a consumer to take into
account when selecting where to receive health care.
With these thoughts in mind:
Post a description of two different things that a consumer might
consider when evaluating whether or not your health care
organization will meet his or her health care needs. Provide a
detailed explanation of each item and rationale for why a
consumer would look at these items when making a decision. Be
specific, and provide examples.
Discussion
Continue the Discussion and respond your colleagues' posts
(250 words or more) describing what the consumer might
consider when utilizing healthcare services. Explain whether

4. you believe the information is credible and whether you would
use the health care organization described, including why or
why not. Explain what additional information you would want
to know, and explain why.
Colleague
When it comes to consumers and choosing a health care
organization, the two decision makers would come to
organization reviews and improvements the organization. Let
us focus on organization reviews “the application of social
networks in the health domain has become increasingly
prevalent. They are web-based technologies which bring
together a group of people and health-care providers having in
common health-related interests, who share text, image, video,
and audio contents and interact with each other. This explains
the increasing amount of attention paid to this topic by
researchers who have investigated a variety of issues dealing
with the specific applications in the health-care industry”
(Pianes and Belfiore, 2021). In today’s world consumers can go
online to review what individuals wrote about an organization,
technology truly has impacts on the success of any organization
along with the opinion of their consumers
When it comes to improvements to organizations this includes
types of services the “health care industry is creating a greater
demand for changes in staffing. For example, there is research
indicating that patient experience and patient satisfaction scores
are enhanced by increased nurse staffing and an improved
nursing environment. In addition, clinical staffing shortages at
community health centers, particularly in rural areas, have
proved to be an obstacle in the drive toward population health, a
major goal of most systems. Accommodating these growing
workforce-related pressures within the transforming health care
industry has, in turn, induced a major change within the
workforce solutions and staffing services sector of the health
care industry” (Faller and Gogek, 2016).
References

5. Tommasina Pianese, & Patrizia Belfiore. (2021). Exploring the
Social Networks’ Use in the Health-Care Industry: A Multi-
Level Analysis. International Journal of Environmental
Research and Public Health, 18(7295), 7295. https://doi -
org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.3390/ijerph18147295
Faller, M., & Gogek, J. (2016). Health Care Evolution Is
Driving Staffing Industry Transformation. Nursing
Administration Quarterly, 40(4), 321–324. https://doi-
org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1097/NAQ.0000000000000185