The need to balance cost and ensure quality care continues to be the driving force behind innovations in health-care. Innovation is seen as a critical component of business productivity and survival.
In the Philippines medical facilities have stepped up their game to meet global standards in terms of facilities and services alike—making the country a competitive player particularly in global medical tourism.
Aside from the pristine beaches and landscapes, hospitable and English-fluent people, the country’s premier hospitals have facilities that can now be on a par with the big players of the world. Not only are medical manpower updated and honed to suit international standards, medical centers in the Philippines also undergo regular innovations and improvements.
They are equipped with the latest in medical tools, machines and technologies that make medical tourists feel they are getting the same quality care as in advanced economies. This is why some prefer treatment in Philippine hospitals, where services are relatively more affordable.
Promoting medical tourism
Traditionally, medical tourism has been about people from less developed countries traveling to highly developed countries for medical treatments that are unavailable in their own communities. But there seems to be a change of the benefiting end with this kind of tourism: it is now people from developed countries who are visiting emergent countries for medical treatments because of cost consideration but, at the same time, quality of services.
As targeted by the Department of Health (DOH) when it formed the Philippine Medical Tourism Program, the country is proving to be competitive in the global medical-tourism arena when it comes to full hospital care and treatment, specialty clinics, wellness and spa centers, and retirement and long-term care for the elderly.
Indeed, the Philippines is starting to be recognized internationally as a hub for medical tourism. Back in 2006, the country established its medical-tourism program, and slowly but surely, it is now bearing fruit. Revenue from medical tourism was seen to increase to P3 billion last year, according to the National Economic and Development Authority.
According to the Oxford Business Group (OBG), the Philippines was able to establish its niche in the stem-cell therapy procedure, particularly regarding its antiaging properties. In effect, Health Secretary Enrique T. Ona said the government is considering measures to make the Philippines an international center for stem-cell research and therapy.
Recognized by the world
Hospitals all over the globe await to be recognized by the Joint Commission International (JCI), the world’s most prestigious accrediting body of health-care organizations. It makes sure that every hospital organization’s policies, procedures and evaluation methods are up-to-date and are compliant with world standards.
The Philippines can now boast of medical institutions that are not only state-of-the-art in terms of aesthetics, such as luxurious hotel-like rooms and spas, but also with world-class facilities and services. This can be proven by a number of the country’s internationally accredited hospitals. At the start of 2013, there were already four hospitals that had JCI accreditation, and many are well on their way as well.
Public-private partnership in health care
The government recognizes that there is still a lot of room for improvement of the country’s health facilities. Because of this, it aims to modernize hospitals through the public-private partnership model. To make this work, existing medical centers will be handed over to private partners who will tune them up for modernization, upgrade their infrastructure and operate them profitably. After the improvements are done, they will then be returned to the government given the agreed period.
Perhaps, due to the government’s lack of resources, there are more private hospitals than state-run medical facilities in the country.
The country has approximately 1,800 hospitals, 60 percent of which are private. According to the OBG, the number of primary health-care centers around the country is 2,242 and there are 721 public hospitals under the management of local government units. In 2010 there were a total of 98,155 hospital beds, 60 percent of which are in public hospitals.
These figures show that the private institutions have stepped in to fill the gap.
Role of IT in health care
On another note, what’s interesting to mention, as well, is the role of information technology (IT) in health care. Blaise Tamar, professor of IT in Cambridge University, said developing countries are still opening themselves up to embracing IT as a key driver of innovation health care. The Philippines, as with other developing nations, he said, needs to capitalize more on integrating IT into its health-care institutions.
According to Amar Gupta, in an article for Wall Street Journal, titled Prescription for Change, while hospitals and other care providers have long been quick to adopt breakthrough technology in medical devices, procedures and treatments, far less attention has focused on innovations in networking and communications. He said this is partly because of concerns about breaches in security and patient privacy, and because health care, until recently, was a service always performed locally and in person.
However, he added that with the dramatic improvements in network security and the ability to transmit images and data globally, the opportunity to revolutionize the health-care industry has never been greater.
According to him, there are four major ways in which IT will revolutionize health care. First, IT will bring in more offshore services. He said there is a tremendous growth in the outsourcing of diagnostic services—particularly imaging, such as x-rays and mammograms, and consultations by specialists. Also, telemedicine has been used by doctors in the US and other countries to provide care to patients in hard-to-reach and underserved locations. Gupta noted that the future of telemedicine lies in its use as a way of distributing work loads and lowering costs.
Another revolutionary work to be done by IT is the integration of health-information systems. He said much of today’s health-information systems were designed to function as silos, with their own rules and formats, and that they often inhibit the opportunity for information to be globally integrated and readily available. In some cases, a patient’s chart in one hospital cannot be read by another hospital. According to Gupta, not only are different languages and measures sometimes used, but conflicts between encryption and other software can make it impossible for systems to exchange data electronically. The goal should be to create medical records that can travel with the patient.
Gupta also said IT will enable drug-safety monitoring on a global scale. He said the need for an international database on drug-safety has steadily increased, especially as more people travel across the globe. There are programs aimed at addressing the gaps that currently exist, however, more work is requires. Medwatch (an initiative of the US Food and Drug Administration) investigates and reports on adverse drug reactions and other safety issues involving medical products. Gupta noted that no agency routinely collects and shares information between countries.
Finally, IT will bring in more high-quality information to doctors and patients. Gupta said web sites such as WebMD have become a source of information for patients and doctors. These sites receive contributions of medical materials from doctors and scientists, and are enhanced by the automated search tools. Many such sites draw materials from online textbooks and medical journals.