Iran medical tourism: a study of three hospitals

A recent study has analysed foreign patient feedback from three large hospitals in Tehran, Iran. It offers ideas on improving the ongoing weaknesses of the country’s healthcare system which are discouraging growth in inbound medical travel.

Due to its various advantages as a medical travel destination, including well-known doctors, high quality medical services, competitive prices, cultural and climatic diversity, and natural hot springs, Iran has been a major player in this sector for many years [2].

A large part of the inbound medical travel to Iran comes from neighbouring countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2019, Iran admitted 38,983 patients from Iraq and 42,476 patients from Afghanistan[14]. Currently, the most common way to attract these patients is through offline marketing, via brokers.

Iran’s other target market relates to European countries, specifically for cosmetic surgery. Online marketing methods are commonly used here, mostly multilingual websites offering content and services in competition with countries in the region such as Turkey.

Turkey, like India, is developing its industry via a strategic plan developed from a detailed SWOT analysis, which identified new opportunities such as easy and free access to healthcare information in the digital sphere [15].

To remain competitive, Iran needs to consider its weaknesses in healthcare and provide the necessary solutions to reduce them.

Conclusion and recommendations

The descriptive-analytical study used a SWOT matrix analysis on three hospitals in Tehran, each with 150 to 200 beds.  It focused the strengths and weaknesses of the International Patient Department at each hospital, using feedback from 100 survey forms from foreign patients during discharge, interviews with the Department of Health Tourism of the Ministry of Health, and from the authors’ field study.

The study recommended:

• Development of a comprehensive strategic plan for health tourism in Iran.
• Specialised training in medical travel is offered to all people active in this industry[12].
• A focus on methods of direct recruitment of international patients. The study argues that improving direct admission of foreign patients is possible via:
  • Multilingual websites with a focus on producing unique content, using the right keywords according to the target market, paying attention to the site ranking, effective video content, etc. [10].
  • Setting up a marketing unit within a hospital’s International Patient Department to ensure branding and proper marketing, including selecting the appropriate target market according to the internal and external positioning of the hospital, and branding of physicians along with branding of hospitals, etc., [8].
  • Establishing hospital offices in target market countries with a focus on branding and effective advertising
  • Establishing outpatient clinics in the borders of neighboring countries, with a focus on free consultation and direct recruitment of patients who enter Iran from the borders of neighboring countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Azerbaijan. This method is likely to be one of the most effective methods to reduce the role of unqualified intermediaries along the borders of Iran and neighbouring countries [9].
• The use of the necessary software infrastructure, such as an integrated health tourism system [11].
• Price monitoring according to the pricing system FFS (Fee For Service) [6] in Iran, which is one of the main reasons for dissatisfaction and price differences announced to patients and their payment in hospitals.

Many other challenges also exist, such as visas, political relations, and international transport, and are beyond the reach of private hospitals organisations.  These require the cooperation of various government departments such as the Ministry of Health, Tourism, Foreign Affairs, etc. [8].

References

• Salmani. Medical Tourism trade in health services; second edition;2017
• Aalami. health tourism in Iran from past to present,2020,IMTJ journals
• Egger (Central Washington University).M.Kent (Science Education Resource Center, Carleton College), SWOT MATRIX;2014
• https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/swot.asp
• S.M.Hosseini, A.Maher , O.Safarian, A.Ayoubian, D.Sheibani-Tehrani, H.AminiAnabad, Z.Development Strategy of Health Tourism in Iran;2015;IJTMGH
• WHO,Provider payments and cost-containment;2007
• Sammut-Bonnici, D.Galea, SWOT Analysis; 2015
• Sitosa.ir/blog
• https://www.mehrnews.com/news/
• http://iht.behdasht.gov.ir/
• Mahdavi, Sh.Mardani, Z.Hashemidehaghi, N.Mardani, The Factors in Development of Health Tourism in Iran; 2013
• Danial, A.Abbaspour, H.Rahimian, N.Shaarbafchi Zadeh, M.Niknami; Training for Medical Tourism in Iran;2017
• Lukianov, M.Mazeika, V.Gogunskii, K.Kolesnikova; SWOT Analysis as an Effective Way to Obtain Primary Data for Mathematical Modeling in Project Risk Management;2020
• Hashemzadeh.MD, N.Aalami, 2020, HOW CAN IRAN ATTRACT MORE IRAQI MEDICAL TRAVELLERS? , https://www.imtj.com/articles/how-can-iran-attract-more-iraqi-medical-travellers/
• E. Gültüvin Gür Omay, Prof. Dr. E. Cengiz , Health Tourism in Turkey: Opportunities and Threats, 2013

About the authors

The study was conducted by Niloufar A’alami, MBA in Health Tourism and operations manager at Sitos (Iran’s Health Tourism System) and Saeed Hashemzadeh, MD and CEO of Mostafa Khomeini Hospital, Tehran. For a full version of the research article, email Niloufar A’alami at [email protected]