International Journal of Travel Medicine and Global Health
Volume:2 Issue: 4, Autumn 2014

Every year several disease outbreaks, such as influenza-like illnesses (ILI) and other contagious illnesses, impose various costs to public and non-government agencies. Most of these expenses are due to not being ready to handle such disease outbreaks. An appropriate preparation will reduce the expenses. A system that is able to recognize these outbreaks can earn income in two ways: first, selling the predictions to government agencies to equip and make preparations in order to reduce the imposed costs and second, selling predictions to pharmaceutical companies to guide them in producing the required drugs when a disease spreads. This production can specify probable markets to these companies.
Both earning methods would be considered in this modeling and costs and incomes will be discussed according to basic business models (especially in the health field). To execute this model, the internet is used as a recipient of information from the doctors and the service providers for prediction.
To ensure collaboration of doctors in the data collection process, the amount of money that is paid is proportional to the rate of sending the patients’ information. On the other hand, customers can access outbreak prediction information about a specific illness after payment or subscription of system for monthly periods. All the money transfered in this system would be via online credit systems.
This business model has three main values: recognizing disease outbreaks at the right time, identifying factors and estimating the spreading rate of the disease and, the categorization of customers in this model is based on the value provided including pharmaceutical companies and importers of drugs, the government, insurance companies, universities and research centers. By considering various markets, this model has the ROI of 0.5 which means the investment in it reverses in 6 months.
According to the results, the business model developed in this study, has fair value and is feasible and suitable for the web. This model develops medical information network and proper marketing, earns good profits and the most critical resource of it is the algorithm that detects the disease outbreak which must be properly constructed and used.

Nowadays, organizations working in dynamic and competitive environments have to change their processes from both the inside and outside of the organization. One of the most effective strategies for monitoring and controlling these changes is re-engineering. This study aimed to refine the collection and classification process of data through re-engineering.
This study was done with an analytical-descriptive approach in 2012, in the Planning and Budget department of the Iran University of Medical Sciences. Data were collected by documents, interviews and observations. Three main process indicators include: number of activities, time, and costs of human resource. These were calculated and compared before and after the implementation of the reengineering. Data were analyzed using Microsoft Excel 2007.
The current status of the process included 53 activities that reduced to 27 after reengineering. Total process time was reduced from 79 to 38 days and direct human costs decreased to about 15 million Rls. Thus, by the implementation of reengineering, the number of activities, time and costs were decreased to 49%, 52% and 54% respectively.
Based on the findings, re-engineering led to improvements of performance and saved resources. Therefore the use of this technique is recommended in order to have an improvement in different performances, increases satisfaction and saves resources.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is known to be associated with deterioration of mental health. However, it is clear that this link is over and beyond the effects of socio-economic factors and other medical conditions. This study had two 1) to compare the association between CKD and general anxiety disorder (GAD) among the two major ethnic groups of American Blacks (e.g. African Americans and Caribbean Blacks), and 2) to compare the association between CKD and major depressive episode (MDE) between African Americans and Caribbean Blacks.
We analyzed data from African Americans and Caribbean Blacks who participated in the National Survey of American Life (NSAL). Self-reported physician diagnosis of CKD was the independent variable. Outcomes were 12- month GAD and MDE measured by the World Mental Health Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI), a fully structured diagnostic interview. Ethnic-specific logistic regressions were used to determine the associations between CKD and 12- month GAD and MDE, after controlling for the effects of age, sex, educational level, and 13 other medical conditions.
Although CKD was positively associated with GAD and MDE in bivariate analysis, this association did not remain statistically significant in the multivariate analysis which controlled for socio-economic factors and other medical conditions. The study suggested that the main confounders for the association between CKD, GAD, and MDE vary based on ethnicity. For instance, the chronic medical condition that may play the role of confounder for the association between CKD and 12-month GAD among African Americans and Caribbean Blacks might be hypertension and heart disease, respectively.
Possible confounders of the associations between CKD and GAD and MDE among American Blacks vary by ethnicity. Further research is needed to determine the links between different types of CKD and poor mental health among American Blacks. Consideration of ethnicity might be important in evaluation and treatment of mental health problems among Black patients with CKD.

This study was conducted to compare 10 American countries for the association between self-reported physician diagnosis of heart disease and subjective health above and beyond the effect of socio-economic factors.
With a cross-sectional design, this study used data from Research on Early Life and Aging Trends and Effects (RELATE). The study included adults from 10 American countries including Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, United States, Mexico, Argentina, Barbados, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, and Uruguay. Outcome was self-rated health, independent variable was self-reported physician diagnosis of heart disease, while age, gender, and socio-economics (education and income) were control variables. Country-specific logistic regressions were used for data analysis.
Although the effects of age, gender, education, and income, were inconsistent, with no exception, in all countries, heart disease was associated with poor subjective health. In Costa Rica, income modified the effect of heart disease on subjective health. In the US, age and gender modified the effect of heart disease on subjective health.
Although the effect of heart disease on well-being was consistent across all north American countries, this effect seemed to depend on various demographic and socio-economic factors in various countries.

Medical tourism is the travel of patients to outside the area of life to benefit from hospitals and medical services or some particular treatment or periodic test of physical conditions. This study has been done with the purpose of formulating a strategic plan of medical tourism development of Ahwaz city.
The method of this research is a descriptive-analytical one that has been done by using a field of work and strategic planning methods for performing a backup analysis and delivering policies and strategies.
The results of the research indicates 16 strength points against 12 weakness points that results in earning the final score of 2.44 from the internal factors. Also, the numbers of 10 opportunities again 10 threats are recognized in related to medical tourism development of Ahwaz city. This has eventually leaded into earning a total final score of 2.8 from the external factors for medical tourism development of Ahwaz city.
The results of applying the strategic planning method indicated that the city of this case study is having relatively higher opportunities and strengths in compared to the weakness points and external threats for the development of medical tourism. Thus, growth Strategies (SO) have been considered as a priority for the development of this part. Also, studies show that the lack of adequate and sufficient publicity and problems in the exportation of visa and also the lack of planning and cooperation and coordination in between the parts related to the absorption of medical tourism are problems that must be solved.

Medical tourism is one of the branches of health tourism and has been an important issue in many developed countries during the past few years. This research has aimed to study the factors affecting the selection of the hospitals of Tehran by the medical tourists who had chosen Iran’s capital city for their treatment.
The present study is a descriptive inferential cross sectional study which was conducted in the summer season of 2014 in the Tehran’s hospitals. The study population included all the reachable medical tourists who had come to the hospitals of Tehran for their treatment during the summer season of 2014. The sample of the interview section included 10-15 experts who were randomly chosen to be interviewed. The sample of the questionnaire section included 50 medical tourists who had come to Tehran’s hospitals for their treatment during the summer season of 2014 (reachable sample). The data of the present study was analyzed by the SPSS software version 20.
According to the results of this study it is clear that famous and reliable physicians and also low health service costs are the two most important factors attracting medical tourists to the hospitals of Tehran. Also, the location of the hospitals have proven to be acceptable for the patients. On the other hand, factors which are related to promotion and the physical evidence of hospitals were not in an acceptable condition.
Despite having famous and reliable physicians and low health service costs in Iran, it can be said that there are still many factors such as better marketing and advertisement, international standardizations and developing recreational centers that need to be focused on, in order to gain the well-earned international position in the medical tourism industry.