Medical Tourism Will Benefit from Telemedicine & Blockchain
At this years Dubai International Health Tourism Forum, our advisor Brian de Francesca, CEO of the telemedicine company VER2 talked about how telemedicine could support medical tourism.
Dubai is aiming high when it comes to medical tourism. The targeted number of medical tourists by 2020 is 500,000. On the other hand, the authorities wish to decrease the number of Emirati nationals that travel overseas for their care.
In his address, de Francesca stressed the importance of pre and post-travel consultations, as well as the use of cloud-based health records.
Several problems occur in medical tourism, causing risk to patients, waste of money, potential comprise of medical institutions due to:
- Limited “pre-travel” preparations (Some patients come in with a wrong diagnosis or lack of tests that should have been done before their travel).
- Loss of patient visibility once abroad.
- Limited follow-up upon return.
- Reluctance of home-based doctors to pick up care, as patients treated elsewhere are perceived risk patients if the doctor is unfamiliar with treatments and procedures that were administered abroad.
- Prescriptions from abroad are not on local formulary or devices are not locally supported.
40% of outbound patients travel abroad due to lack of confidence in local diagnosis or treatment plan. In Brian’s experience, telemedical 2nd opinion by a trusted specialist could reduced overseas travel by 40%.
Telemedicine can improve the experience of patients and caregivers, increase the efficiency of medical institutions. The technology is available; the challenge is changes in workflows and processes, scheduling, communication, planning, and coordination.
As de Francesca stressed a “blockchain foundation” to health records and health monitoring devices will significantly improve safety, effectiveness, and profitability of medical tourism. Blockchain can enhance the degree of trust in the continuum of care, which is essential for thriving medical tourism.
Iryo’s advisor Brian de Francesca is a Johns Hopkins educated expert in the use of digitalization and connectivity to improve healthcare quality, access and efficiency.
Brian lived in Thailand for over a decade, where he worked with Bangkok Hospital and Bumrungrad Hospital — both of which receive large numbers of medical tourists each year; he later worked for Johns Hopkins in Abu Dhabi, from where many patients travel to North America, Europe and Asia for care.
Brian has won awards for his TeleStroke program in Asia and Tele-medical education programs in Africa. He has over 20 years international healthcare experience and has worked at both extremes of the medical tourism continuum — using telemedicine to greatly improve medical travel.
In 2015, Brian founded Ver2 — an innovative telemedicine services platform, that recently received an Expo2020 Global Innovator’s Grant for its “Connecting Minds” work in Africa.
One of Brian’s personal goals, is to connect 700 refugee camps to healthcare and education resources over the Ver2 Platform. Brian is a graduate of Johns Hopkins and Loyola Universities, a Fellow of The Advisory Board Company and holds a Certificate in Company Direction from “The Institute of Directors” (IOD). Brian lives in Dubai with his wife and four of his children.
