Healthcare Mobility between East and West, Two Forthcoming Challenges

Medical tourism has been emerged due to the trend of healthcare mobility among different countries. In fact it is a new type of healthcare mobility (1, 2) since not only it involves the clinical services, but also other non-clinical services are likely to be essential and also it is highly affected by cultural factors (3). Eastern countries or developing countries are mostly the main destination for western countries or more affluent societies due to several reasons discussed in previous studies. Such a trend from west to east caused variety of issues to be discussed and study by the authorities and researchers. The characters of healthcare system differ based on the regulation of each country, from the other perspective, patients are in their “most physically and emotionally vulnerable” situation (4) and it provides added pressure to tolerate cultural differences in this situation (5). Provided that medical tourists are neither patient nor tourist (asserted by the website of MTQA) the process of providing an appropriate service in medical tourism is likely to be much more striking. Considering the cultural background of demand and supply sides, two main challenges can be discussed. The first challenge implies on the cultural differences of doctors and patients, while the second challenge comes from the fact that many immigrants travel back to their homeland for medical services, mainly because of cultural similarities. Both these trends lead to a wide range of questions and demand for clarification.