JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The primary question to be answered with this research was: What can we learn about health travelers to India through analysis of their online narratives? This research assumed its findings will help in the providers who service current and future medical tourists. In addition, the findings can be used to assist in decision-making for patients considering health travel too, and the results may strengthen health administration education by providing general insights on the medical tourism process.

Objective:

The primary question to be answered with this research was: What can we learn about health travelers to India through analysis of their online narratives? This research assumed its findings will help in the providers who service current and future medical tourists. In addition, the findings can be used to assist in decision-making for patients considering health travel too, and the results may strengthen health administration education by providing general insights on the medical tourism process.

Methods:

Publicly available narratives written, by medical tourists to India, were obtained using the Google web search engine. At the conclusion of the data collection process, a total of 53 narratives were deemed eligible for analysis. The analysis process comprised of initial open coding being conducted on the narratives to create initial codes and identify common themes with a focus on the initial research question and sub-questions. The content of each sentence was examined to identify positive and negative opinions. Qualitative coding software (Nvivo) was used to identify relationships with the various initial themes. Finally, an additional researcher reviewed eight cases to confirm the major themes identified by the initial researcher.

Results:

A vast majority of the narratives, forty-five, were made between 2010 and 2017. While they were not the only destination cities mentioned, Mumbai, Chennai, and New Delhi were the most popular cities patients visited for care. The medical tourists, who stated their origin country, came from the following continents: Africa, Europe, North America, and Oceania. Dental, Ayurveda, and optical were the most popular types of care received by the medical tourists. When gender was mention, there were 21 males and 18 female medical tourists. Fourteen of the patients were over 40 years of age when their initial post was made. However, most narratives did not mention the patient’s age. The results showed most of the medical tourists were happy with the overall experience of receiving care in India. The most popular contributors to the patients’ satisfaction were low costs, good customer service, and services being offered that were unavailable in the patient’s home country. When negative feedback was provided, it concentrated on the overall environment of India being crowded/unorganized, noisy, and not very sanitary.

Conclusions:

Primarily, the study’s findings can benefit health care providers and patients. Providers hosting medical tourists in India can use negative feedback to improve their services; likewise, providers that are losing patients to medical tourism can improve their care too. Also, these results offer additional alternatives for patients receiving care for their health. Clinical Trial: NA