Medical Tourism Industry in Iran: Strategies for Development

Medical tourism as one of the dimensions of tourism is helping in sustainable development and dynamics of the economy. Considering the low cost and high income of the industry and its role on strengthening country health structures, many developing countries focused their attention on the industrial sector and planning for it. The purpose of this research was to investigate effective factors in developing of medical tourism from manager's view point of selective hospital in Tehran and prioritizes them. In this descriptive cross-sectional research 17 managers (hospital manager, Quality manager, and nursing manager) from Hashemi Nejad, Dey, Heart Center, Sarem, Laleh, Parsian, Baghiatallah hospital in Tehran were enrolled in 2008-9. Data was collected by a two-part questionnaire. It was completed by managers after confirmation of its academic validity and reliability by an 87 percent reliability Cronbach's alpha test. Effective factors in developing of medical tourism were prioritized in 4 indicators including, public infrastructure development strategy, human resources development strategy, information systems development strategy and marketing, product development strategies Data were analyzed using the SPSS-16 software and descriptive analytical statistical tests. 70.6% of managers working in the private sector, 64.7% of women, 41.2% of nurse managers and 33.3% of managers have been familiar with medical tourism less than a year. There was significant relationship between the development of medical tourism and effective indicators in developing (P < 0.05). The most influential factors in the development of medical tourism from the opinion of managers were public infrastructure development strategy, human resource development strategy, information system development strategy and marketing, product development strategy, respectively. For the development of medical tourism industry it is suggested that government should consider all effective factors by designing a comprehensive and coordinated program in this regard.