Data Smog and Medical Tourism
August 21st, 2008 by -- the moderator
As of this morning, a Google search for “medical tourism” returns 1.8 million results. If a reader spent one minute on each page, for eight hours a day, it would take more than a decade to get to the end … and by that time there will probably be some more millions of results.
One of the mantras of medical tourism, as far as advice to people who are thinking about going overseas for healthcare, is “Do Your Homework.” Everyone says it. If you think I’m exaggerating — another Google search, this time for “medical tourism” and “Do Your Homework,” turns up 2,400 references. That’s a lot better than 1.8 million but it’s still a lot to go through for what is liable to be very much the same thing, over and over again, with the possibility that you aren’t going to find what you really want at all.
In the research biz, we call this data smog, a term probably coined and certainly popularized by David Shenk in 1997. As an author, I have learned to live with data smog. Once upon a time, people wrote books about particular subjects because not enough information was available about them. More often in the Internet age, books are written because too much information is available and someone hits on the good idea of winnowing it down. When I wrote Beauty from Afar in 2005-06, medical tourism was somewhere in between those two things and the book’s narrative was shaped accordingly. There are a lot of things in it that hardly anyone knew about, and also a lot about how to find medical information online. Today, there are books such as those in Joe Woodman’s Patients Beyond Borders series, which are more directory-like and represent more of an effort to bring good information out of the smog.
Part of what medical travel companies such as BridgeHealth International consciously do, part of what they bring to the table for consumers, is that they are soldiers in the war on data smog. They travel, accumulate good information, choose hospitals, facilities, surgeons and doctors on behalf of prospective patients; who in turn travel, undergo medical procedures, give valuable feedback on their own experiences.
Prospective medical travelers should try to pick their informational gateways, checkpoints and entryways early on. Maybe you’ll go by book; maybe you have a hospital in mind that has a great web site. Among the advantages of going with a company like BridgeHealth International is that you can stop reading, occasionally, and pick up the phone.
But you’re never going to get healthcare overseas — or anywhere else — if you get lost in the smog.
This entry was posted on Thursday, August 21st, 2008 at 9:49 am and is filed under Inside BridgeHealth International, Medical Travel in the News, Patients Abroad, Perspectives on Medical Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 21st, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Jeff. You’ve been around this business for a long time. I’m glad to see we have someone who will be able to serve as an historian on how the industry of medical tourism grew and developed.
I read “Beauty from Afar” in 2005 when it was published and believe it is still a great resource for those seeking quality information about medical, surgical and dental care outside the United States.
Stephanie
August 21st, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Thanks, Steph. You know, I’m a fan of yours as well …
I always remember, though — as you know, there are some plastic surgeons in Costa Rica, Brazil, Mexico … who have had entire careers in what people came to call medical tourism, and are now retired or nearing it. Dr. Pitanguy in Brazil is probably the best-known name, but there are others.
-jeff
August 21st, 2008 at 4:21 pm
It’s interesting to me that years ago when medical tourism wasn’t part of many conversations and certainly wasn’t blog material that it wasn’t called anything but, “don’t tell anyone where I’m going or what I’m going for.” Who could have predicted that, in 2008, you would open a magazine like “Good Housekeeping” or a newspaper like “The New York Times” and see stories about US citizen’s having hysterectomies or hip replacements in foreign countries because they couldn’t afford to have needed surgery done in the States.
August 31st, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Good points from both of you. In fact this is, as often happens, an industry borne of necessity. Many people are not able to afford healthcare in the USA. In the UK and Canada as well as other countries, people who have serious problems have to stand in line for life threatening illnesses.
In our highly entrepreneurial small business environment, more and more people do not have insurance. And, because of the insurance-based inflated medical price structure in the USA people must look for a more cost-effective solution. Added to this is the aging of the USA population and the health needs of what is called the “baby boomers”.
Fortunately, because of demand, many countries have made it a national goal to set high standards for healthcare in the hope of attracting medical travelers.
This industry is also aided by the international arm to our independent credentialing agency, Joint Commission International (JCI), taking on accreditation of hospitals around the world.
Fortunately, for those of us who are self employed and of an age to have healthcare needs, this is a convergence that will benefit all the parties at the table if the worldwide providers of care are truly committed to quality care.
Thank you for your comments and keep up the good work.