The Requirements and Biases of Medical Tourism Website for Hospitals: A Cross-Sectional Study

Informing the target population plays an important role in medical tourism attraction and should be managed in order to incorporate all appropriate tools to increase it. The aim of this study was to determine the requirements and basis of a medical tourism website for hospitals. This study was a cross sectional analytical study that was performed during year 2018 amongst hospital managers and faculty members of Iranian medical sciences universities that have the potential to attract medical tourism. Data gathering was done by a self-made questionnaire. From 120 questionnaires, which were distributed between samples, 82 were gathered completely. Data analysis was done by SPSS version 16 and descriptive (mean, frequency and etc.) and analytical (one-way ANOVA) statistical tests. The results of the study showed that from the experts point of view, the most important requirement and basis of Hospital Medical Tourism Websites) HMTW(was photo gallery (mean = 4.44) and a general guide for patients (mean = 3.85) was the least significant element in HMTW. Also, there was no difference between faculty members, staff, and different genders regarding views about HMTW items (P = 0.11). Based on the results, it was suggested that the results of this study could be used by policymakers of medical tourism and HMTW developers. Also, the results of this study could be used as an evaluation tool for investigating hospital websites regarding medical tourism attraction abilities.