How many people do you think travel abroad for medical reasons?
Global news would periodically cover momentous stories about patients who have had to travel some distance for life-saving medical care.
One such story is of a 4-year old boy from Dubai who travelled 7,000 miles to the United States to receive a liver transplant — one that ultimately saved his life. This is merely one of the many examples of what borderless medical care can do to dignify the gift of life.
But urgency and medical tourism aren’t always in the same sentence.
An estimated 14–16 million people travelled to seek healthcare in 2017, according to a report published in the American Journal of Medicine — and this number is expected to grow. The multi-billion dollar industry is projected to increase by up to 20% per year over the next 10 years, according to Patients Without Borders.
Patients all over the world engage in medical tourism for a myriad of reasons, including:
· Affordability
· Availability of care
· Preference to seek out specific providers or locations
· Preference to seek out care not covered by traditional health insurance
Traditionally, patients with the necessary resources journeyed to medical centres in more developed countries to receive treatments not available in their own countries. Today, with the burgeoning medical industry, the shift is evident. Patients from First World nations are traveling to advanced medical facilities at emerging countries, bypassing care offered in their own countries for economical treatments.
For Saudi Arabia, the latter is bound to happen.
Saudi Arabia is strategically located between Europe and Asia, ideal to be developed as a regional centre for healthcare. According to Arabian Gazette, government spending on healthcare across the MENA region is expected to reach US$ 144 billion by 2020. Saudi Arabia, the largest market, has built in in Saudi Vision 2030 to optimise and better utilise the capacity of hospitals and health care centres.
In addition, the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund’s 2020 strategy includes plans to establish “medical cities” and develop a local pharmaceutical and medical devices industry to reduce the kingdom’s reliance on imports.
This presents an excellent breeding ground for technology advancements, such as healthcare blockchain. For Saudi-based Sihatech, an ecosystem that connects patients with top tier providers and doctors, serving 1.7 million network transactions daily; creating a healthcare blockchain, SIHA Token, is the bona fide next step.
Fundamentally, medical tourists want safety and stability when receiving treatments particularly in a foreign land. Blockchain is the answer to those concerns, and an asset to medical tourism — here are 3 reasons why:
Electronic Health Records (EHR)
Imagine having all your medical records, then going to a doctor in a different country and giving him/her the token to access your records.
EHR is a secure holding place for medical data — hospital records, vaccination records, lab results and genomic data, among others — that the patient personally manages. Its direct access means that all new tests and treatments get updated in real-time to the EHR blockchain, making that information available to all parties with permitted access (by the patient), for example the medical providers and insurance companies.
EHR helps to minimise medical error and remove data flow bottlenecks, allowing information to flow fluidly and securely, enhancing interoperability between systems across and beyond the nations.
Core Medical Services (CMS)
In the MENA region, there is a high prevalence of lifestyle related problems such as diabetes, hypertension, cancer and heart ailments. In order to prevent existing medical conditions from worsening, SIHA Token offers the financial coverage of preventative treatments, also known as CMS.
This removes the financial burden for the patient, as these types of treatments are typically not covered by traditional health insurances.
Cost-saving and Streamlined Billing Management
SIHA Token operates with a value-based concept, whereby patients pay prices that have been fairly decided upon, for all medical care.
Blockchain technology also automates many claim payments, eliminating any middlemen that might have inflated the price. Thanks to its decentralised data, the terms also provide transparency with billing and payment records while streamlining the process.
Sihatech believes in a global decentralised healthcare system where patients are empowered to access top quality care at an affordable cost, and hence, created SIHA Token in that likeness.
Healthcare is global, and the timely presence of blockchain-based technology will help evolve medical tourism to where it needs to go.
