How health IT can deliver on the promise of Medical Travel

Health IT for large systems, hospitals, and traditional physician practices is well underway. Enough so that innovators/startups, are starting to see consolidation and heavy competition. As I look around at new areas for health IT implementations, I think areas in medical travel or medical tourism (“MT”) appear to be great opportunities. A potent mix of the Internet, cloud computing and globalized medicine — when combined — should drive medical travel. I’ll be speaking at the Medical Travel and Global Healthcare Business Summit in Tampa Florida. That’s where nationally known healthcare care providers, hospital executives, consultants and medical travel facilitators will meet June 14th through 17th. Topics at the summit will include telemedicine, m-health solutions and the roles they play in supporting medical travel. I asked a friend who knows a good deal about MT, Agha Ahmed, to help explain what medical travel/tourism is all about and what entrepreneurs should know about how to take advantage of the upcoming opportunities. Agha is a 15- year veteran of the medical IT industry and is currently serving as a Managing Partner at GHIMBA, a Global Healthcare IT organization based in the Washington DC area. In this post, Agha reviews drivers of the medical travel industry and the benefits that IT provides industry participants. Here’s what Agha said: What Drives Demand for Medical Travel? When ever-growing medical insurance premiums, deductibles...
Source: The Healthcare IT Guy - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: Innovation Connected Health Medical tourism Telehealth Source Type: blogs