Evaluating of the Capabilities of Tabriz Hospitals in the Development of Health Tourism

Health tourism includes any travel for health promotion. As a tourism dimension it helps to develop sustainable and dynamic economic, and as a national strategy it leads to an increase in country's income. It is known as national security lever. The purpose of this study is to evaluate capability of Tabriz hospitals in attracting patients from other countries and identifying their weakness and strength in order to offer solution for promoting Tabriz health tourism.
120 samples among doctors, supervisors and matron were analyzed among 4 hospitals, which were known as more active in attracting foreign patient based on tourism committee data.
The results show that a high percent of respondent (%43.3) were unfamiliar with health tourism and this is a drastic problem in health tourism field. Investigating on the two hospital's medical records in Tabriz indicates that about 100 percent of demand for the medical services of one of those two hospital's and %95.6 of the other one are from foreign patients who they were came from Azerbaijan country seeking for a better and qualified services in Iran.
It is necessary for policy makers and managerial board of those two and also other hospitals in Tabriz to have a plan to use this opportunity for promotion of the medical tourism in the region.