Despite a troubled economy, medical tourism shows promising signs of continued development in Spain, especially in locations that feature both surgical and therapeutic thermal spa offers. In addition to magnificent beaches, history and culture, the Balearic Islands also offer health and beauty thermal spas for visitors to enjoy facilities for fun, physical rehabilitation and relaxation.
Thalassotherapy (therapies using sea water, seaweed and therapeutic muds), spas, beauty centers and physical rehabilitation centers in addition to private clinics (hospitals) and medical centers are available and provide private health services to expats and medical tourism clientele that elect to travel to the islands specifically to receive medical care.
Organized by the regional government of the Canary Islands, the Health and Tourism Forum Balearic Islands will focus on the organized development, operation and branding of medical tourism services and a cluster infrastructure developed between hotels, resorts, other tourism suppliers and medical and spa facilities.
The Forum will be held 26 February, 2013 in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
Maria K Todd, MHA PhD, CEO and founder of The Mercury Healthcare Companies will be on hand for this event to speak about how hotels can prepare to participate more aggressively in medical tourism and health travel. Todd organized the largest globally integrated health delivery system® in the world, with headquarters in Denver, Colorado. The Mercury Health Travel network is designed as an accountable health care organization for use by self-funded employer group health plans and has more cloud-based technology and healthcare management infrastructure than most physician-hospital organizations in America. It has more than 15,000 approved surgical facilities that offer bundled case rate pricing in the USA and 95 other countries, similar to the program that was announced on January 31, 2013 by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) in the USA. Mercury has offered bundled case rates for surgery since 1997.
She is the author of three books on medical tourism, including the Handbook of Medical Tourism Program Development, the Medical Tourism Facilitators’
Dr Todd will travel to the Balearics a few days early to arrive to do a brief inspection of the medical tourism product, accompanied by government officials from the Govern de les Illes Balears. Her comments will be presented on the 26th in a brief findings report, and she will also participate in a roundtable discussion. Todd is the only representative invited from the USA. She will be flanked by other Mercury Advisory Group associates that will speak or attend from Mercury’s EU branch offices in Spain.
Todd also conducts workshops on medical tourism planning and development through the Healthcare Business Institute, which uses training facilities located at the University of Denver’s Cable Center. The workshops attract small groups of medical and health industry professionals from around the world to Denver to learn how to coordinate the logistics and marketing of medical tourism and surgical travel for patients. They tour hotels, learn how to inspect hospitals, hotels, airports, and interview executive staff in food and beverage, security, and housekeeping to understand the logistics from a perspective other than their domain inside health care. Students also visit the airport to review and interview how special services are coordinated to facilitate accommodation for physically challenged medical travelers.
