The plethora of awards, certificates and badges that are now available
in the medical tourism sector set me thinking. What are all these awards about,
what do they mean, who gets them and are they actually worth anything?
I won an award this year.... but
not for medical tourism. Alongside running a business, I somehow find the time
to fulfil the role of Chairman of our local youth football club, Berkhamsted
Raiders CFC. It’s a big club (700 girls and boys, 56 teams) and is a registered
not for profit charity. We won the FA
Eastern Region Charter Standard Community Club of the Year Award. It puts us in
the “Top Ten” youth football clubs in the country. Well done us!
So what’s the relevance to
medical tourism? Well, in medical tourism it seems to be a lot easier to pick up
a few awards and “standards” than it is in youth football... which is a little
strange. To win our FA award, our Club has to meet “charter standards”. These
are very detailed and very specific. The standards cover many aspects of the
way that we run the club. They require our 56 team managers to achieve external
qualifications. They require us to have a Club Welfare Officer and so on. Every year, we are re-assessed against these
standards by FA assessors. For the Charter Standard Community Club of the Year
Award, we are rated against some of the best run and well managed clubs around
by an independent awards Committee.
If you want to win an award or
gain a certificate in medical tourism, it’s a little different. It’s a
reflection of the fairly immature and chaotic state of this industry.
You probably won’t need to
trouble yourself or your organisation with a detailed set of standards about
the way you do things or to go under examination by an independent body; if you
sound as if you know what you’re talking about or can post a certificate on
your wall, it’s only a matter of time until the awards and certifications will
come your way.
The awards frenzy
In medical tourism, there is an
awards frenzy at the moment. This
“let’s invent another award” craze peaked at a congress in the USA the other
week. Prior to the congress, 24 medical tourism leadership awards were
announced. To my knowledge, none of these 24 were awarded at the event. The
conference organisers say that “due to the overwhelming amount of nominations
received, we decided to extend the deadline”. I confess that I don’t really get
this. If the conference company is inundated with nominations already, why are
they inviting more? (I did ask them, but they chose not to reply). Award
deadlines usually get extended when you’ve had a dire response and you’re
desperate to find someone to get rid of them to!
They did manage to unload a few
trophies though. Another 8 awards were made at a membership meeting and
luncheon. (... so we now have 32 annual
medical tourism awards... this should keep the engravers busy.) I picked up the
related PR for a couple of these awards soon after. They appeared to be a bit like giving your
gardener an award for.... being a good gardener . This was reflected in a “Justitia
Award” which went to a US lawyer. According to the PR, his “achievements have
enhanced and brought innovation to the medical tourism and international
healthcare industry”. His online profile gives a mention to medical tourism, so
I guess that’s a positive. The PR also thanks him for working with the
conference organisers. Ah... now I get it.
Another award winner was to a
regular speaker at medical tourism conferences, the “showman” of medical
tourism who received a “prestigious Leadership Award”. I don’t know where the
recipient of this award finds the time to collect awards. A doctor in medicine, an MBA, a Post Graduate
Diploma, a Chartered Consultant (CABA), “founder of the world’s biggest
community of global healthcare professionals, editor of two health magazines,
“undoubtedly.... a leading medical tourism consultant in the world”, “author of
Medical Tourism Guide Book”, “a consultancy and global training business”, “he
has launched several global innovative initiatives projects” the list is endless.
He has also managed to fit in serving as the conference organiser’s “Global
Strategic Officer” for some years. Ah... now I get it.
I know the recipient reasonably
well. He’s a pleasant, well meaning guy.
I sat through one of his
conference presentations in Turkey this week. It was an overview of the Far
East medical tourism market. Here’s a few insights from the leadership award
winner, if you missed it:
·
“Singapore,
Malaysia, Korea - These are in the top
because the governments support them. They do very good medical tourism.”
·
“Here is one
very important thing in medical tourism. The brand. Singapore did that
wonderful thing.”
·
“Thailand a
very good web site. A wonderful quality medical services. A very reasonable
price. An excellent personalised services. And they make very good government
relationships.”
I would expect a “leadership
award winner” to do a bit better than this.
Some vision, some insight, some inspiration. I was disappointed.
Let’s get certified... now, where shall we start
Back to my youth football
club...... we have 56 parent managers who run the teams. All of them have to be
certified to allow them to take on the role. That means they have to be CRB
(Criminal Records Bureau) checked. They
have to commit their free time to attend external courses to achieve a basic
coaching qualification and to gain a safeguarding children and a first aid in sport qualification. They have
to pass an exam.
Compare this with the latest raft
of “certifications” to hit the medical tourism world. Now... certifying adults
who supervise children is important. And
it requires quite a commitment from these people to achieve the certification.
But in the medical travel world, life is a lot easier. After all, we’re only
dealing with the health and safety of patients...
Let’s take a look at a few of the latest certifications to be on the
medical tourism sector:
You can now become a “Certified
Medical Travel Specialist™”. Hand over $1,500 and a US organisation will
certify you for two years. The 8 hours of training/classes can be completed
either live in person at an event or online. 64 attendees at a recent event are
now certified as medical tourism and medical travel specialists. I understand
that they got this for “free” as part of their exhibitor package. I guess that
some didn’t bother to turn up, and just “took the badge”. But I’m sure the
medical travel world is a far more informed and safer place now we have 64
“specialists” out there selling our services.
Destinations and hospitals can
now achieve “International Patient Services Certification. A destination has to cough up something like
a $25,000 flat fee plus $10,000 for each facility that wants to participate.
I honestly, can’t take these
certifications seriously. Are hospital businesses taking these seriously? Will
patients be safer or better off in a hospital that has “International Patient
Services Certification”. Ask yourself this question and be honest about your
answer:
What’s the driver? The desire for
a better, safer medical travel world... the pursuit of income from training and
certification.... the pursuit of more patients by being able to say “I’ve got
this badge”.
Hospital and web awards
We also have awards for hospitals
appearing on the scene. There are the awards for the “10 World’s Best Hospitals
for Medical Tourists™”. I can’t work out from the site who awarded these
hospitals Top Ten status or what the criteria were. But hey.... if it’s awarded
by something that sounds as impressive as the “Medical Travel Quality
Alliance”, it has to be a recommendation that patients can rely on, doesn’t it?
The web is also awash with “site
awards”. I’ll take one example to explain how they work and why they are
becoming popular. There’s a Medical Travel E-award run by Novasans. It has some
pretty stringent criteria (not). In fact, probably 9 out of 10 medical tourism
web sites would qualify for the award. So, why do they give it away to web
sites? It’s simple SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Give the award to as many
web sites as you can, get a link back to your site, and hey presto, you have
lots of inbound links.... and your SEO objectives are achieved. Is Novasans
trying to up the quality of medical travel web sites.... well, kind of, but is
that the real reason?
Last word
So, what’s your view? Have you
won an award? Are you certificated? Who should be running certification
programmes in medical tourism?
Business & Investment Opportunities
YourVietnamExpert is a division of Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd (SBC), Incorporated in Singapore since 1994. As Your Business Companion, we propose a range of services in Strategy, Investment and Management, focusing Healthcare and Life Science with expertise in ASEAN. Since we are currently changing the platform of www.yourvietnamexpert.com, if any request, please, contact directly Dr Christian SIODMAK, business strategist, owner and CEO of SBC at christian.siodmak@gmail.com. Many thanks.
No comments:
Post a Comment