Patient choice in medical tourism...Let's hear the patient's voice

The recent Medical Tourism Climate Survey conducted by IMTJ for the European Medical Travel Conference 2010 provided an interesting insight into the current state of the industry and how people in the industry are thinking about medical tourism. The survey analysed the views of over 250 people involved in medical tourism from 55 countries. One particular question that drew my attention was one that asked people in the industry about the factors that influence patient choice. The question was this:

“What factors do you think are important to medical tourists when they choose a healthcare facility or treatment provider abroad?”

Expertise and qualifications of the doctor/dentist ranked first. Comments and ratings by other patients ranked second.

It’s the high ranking of “patient opinion” that surprised me, given the industry’s apparent reluctance to “buy in” to the concept of patient ratings and reviews. Hospitals worldwide are investing large sums of money in accreditation and quality standards, sometimes as a marketing tool to attract patients and referrers. But very few patients have any idea what JCI accreditation means, or how this can help them to compare quality at different hospitals.

So, how are patients comparing competing destinations and healthcare providers?

As patients evolve into healthcare consumers, they are considering the purchase of healthcare in much the same way that they consider the purchase of any consumer good or service. And medical tourists are no different.

Let’s consider the tourism or travel element of medical tourism and medical travel. When consumers are booking a holiday or a hotel, what do they do and where do they go to gather information that will guide their choice. To determine price and availability they visit travel and holiday portals online. Sites such as Lastminute.com and Expedia attract massive volumes of traffic. And where do these consumers go to gather “opinion” about quality and services at their destination or hotel. Travel consumers want to hear from “people like me” before they buy.... which is why TripAdvisor has become one of the busiest web sites in the travel sector.

So, what are the options for medical tourists who want to hear from “people like me” before they buy? Many patients whether they are travelling patients or “stay at home” patients make extensive use of patient forums before they make a decision on treatment at home or abroad. Infertility treatment abroad is a good example. Take a look at the Fertility Treatment Abroad section of the FertilityZone web site, and some of the discussions that take place around the services provided by various IVF and infertility clinics abroad:

• Clinic Fiv Madrid, Spain - 620 comments and 22,219 page views.


• IVF in Norway -- 122 comments and 12,431 page views.

If you were a patient seeking infertility treatment abroad what would influence your decision more....

• The accreditation status of the clinic?



• The qualifications of the doctor?



• The views of other patients?

I’m willing to bet that the views of other patients....“consumer opinion” would be the major influence on your decision. (Obviously, for IVF treatment, patients would also be looking at outcome data/fertilisation rates published by the clinic). This seems to be the conclusion reached by the respondents in the IMTJ Medical Tourism Climate Survey.

So...why hasn’t the medical tourism sector bought into patient ratings and reviews?

At Treatment Abroad, we were the first to enable medical tourists to rate and review overseas hospitals and clinics. At Medical Tourism Ratings and Reviews, patients can score these clinics and post their comments about the service and treatment received. To enable this, we invest heavily in Bazaarvoice, the world leaders in online rating systems to manage our new service. They make sure that only valid reviews make it on to our medical tourism reviews site. The moderators are well educated, trained and tested to ensure only appropriate user-generated content gets posted. Nevertheless, we are disappointed in the adoption of this reviews system by our clients.

When we promote the reviews system direct to patients and people who have enquired about treatment abroad, we get excellent take up. Patients are keen to share their experiences and benefit from other patients’ experiences. Similarly, some of our clients see the benefit of allowing patients to rate and review their services and actively encourage their past patients to visit the site and post a review. The system is free. It doesn’t cost the client a penny extra to participate. But many of our clients are less enthusiastic about patient reviews.

Why is there reluctance to encourage patient reviews for medical tourism?

The most common objection from clients is that they are worried about negative reviews. What happens if a patient actually says something that they don’t like?

Well, as all of the hotels and holiday providers on Trip Adviser know, a negative review may affect their business negatively. Or will it?

On Medical Tourism Ratings and Reviews, we publish negative patient reviews, as long as they are not profane or violate other rules of moderation, such as raising litigation or malpractice issues.

Negative patient reviews are valuable

Negative reviews are of value to the healthcare provider and to healthcare consumers. Negative reviews show credibility – if there are nothing but 5-star reviews for your services, healthcare consumers get suspicious about the authenticity of the content.

Negative reviews also give objective feedback and help healthcare providers uncover blind spots. Perhaps there was a breakdown in a process or poor communication with the patient, or some misinformation in the description of your services on your website. Direct feedback from your patients is the most transparent way to uncover these issues and get them solved quickly.

When we publish a negative review on Medical Tourism Ratings and Reviews, we give the client a chance to respond – to explain what went wrong and to say what they are doing to put things right. Negative reviews which we reject and do not publish (but we do pass to clients) are also incredibly valuable. When patients are upset with your service or their treatment, they sometimes get angry, which can cause them to violate the terms of our review system, use profanity, threaten legal action or go off on a tangent – all things that can lead us to reject a review.

Don't ignore negative patient reviews

It’s important for healthcare providers not to ignore this information, because if you can uncover and solve a legitimate problem, and complete the circle, it makes it less likely that the patient will spread their rancour to blogs, forums, and other places where you are unable to see, control or address their comments.It’s important for healthcare providers to review all negative content, so they can uncover service or system improvements to improve future patient interactions.

The message... it’s time for medical tourism providers to start actively encouraging patients to rate and review their services and to start listening to what patients have to say. Accept that sometimes things do go wrong, that patients will be unhappy and will want to tell the world.

You may learn more from getting something wrong than you do from getting something right.

Medical tourism ratings and reviews

It's been a couple of months since we launched medical tourism ratings and reviews. It's met with a variable response from the medical tourism industry, and from the patients themselves.

Medical tourism ratings and reviews at Treatment Abroad enables patients to provide feedback on their experience of travelling for treatment abroad. The Ratings and Reviews system is integral to our business philosophy of “helping patients to make the right choice”. It's run through Bazaarvoice, the US based world leader in reviews systems who operate similar systems for companies such as Dell, Sears, Argos and many others.

When a patient submits a review of a medical tourism agency, a hospital or a clinic, the review is checked by the Reviews Team to ensure that:

• The review is valid, honest and fair comment.


• It is not a spurious review that has been “invented” by a healthcare provider to promote their facility or to damage a competitor’s reputation.


• The review does not bontain profanity or inappropriate content.


• The review does not raise issues of legal liability.

Healthcare providers and agencies are given the opportunity to respond to any negative reviews.

So...what do the healthcare providers think of ratings and reviews?
It's interesting.... those medical tourism agencies and healthcare providers that are "marketing oriented" have adopted the approach with enthusiasm. They see it as a highly attractive way of generating "word of mouth" recommendation of their services and it doesn't cost them a penny.

Companies such as Gorgeous Getaways in South Africa and Vital Europe in Hungary are actively encouraging their patients to review their services:

• View medical tourism reviews for Gorgeous Getaways
• View medical tourism reviews for Vital Europe

Others are less enthusastic....and I'm not sure why! Is it because they are fearful of patients posting negative comments about their experience? Is it because they are just not switched on to the power of "word of mouth" and the way in whiuch consumers are using the web to influence product and service purchase?

Experience from other industries shows that:

• 63% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a supplier, if it has ratings and reviews.
• 77% of online shoppers use reviews and ratings when purchasing.
• 82% of those who read reviews said that their purchasing decisions have been directly influenced by those reviews.

Asking people to record their experience of medical tourism should encourage more patients to travel for treatment abroad. And, Medical Tourism Ratings and Reviews should help healthcare providers to tune into the “patient’s voice”.

So...what do the patients think of it?
They love it! The feedback on their medical tourism experience is overwhelmingly positive, and it's helping to reassure other patients who are considering medical travel. Patients are healthcare consumers; and typical consumer behaviour is beginning to influence the way that they buy healthcare. If they can rate and review their hotel or holiday experience on TripAdvisor.... why not do the same for medical travel?

Helping patients make the right choice of medical tourism service

More and more people are using online reviews to make decisions about the products and service that they buy. Consumers worldwide want to hear from “people like me” before they make a decision about which product or service to buy. TripAdvisor has become the first place that many people visit when they are planning a holiday or booking a hotel.

So, would medical tourists benefit from hearing about the experiences of other people who have travelled abroad for treatment? Undoubtedly, Yes!.

The web is now the first place that people look to research hospitals and clinics online before they decide where to go. Choosing a doctor, operation, or hospital, is a big decision, and the more opinions a patient can gather, the more secure they feel with their ultimate choice.

The philosophy of our online business is "helping patients to make the right choice". That's why we've just launched Treatment Abroad Ratings and Reviews to provide patients with the “word of mouth” that will help them to make the right choice of medical tourism service, hospital or clinic. We know from other areas of industry that:

• 63% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a supplier, if it has ratings and reviews.
  
• 77% of online shoppers use reviews and ratings when purchasing.
  
• 82% of those who read reviews say that their purchasing decisions are directly influenced by those reviews.

But how much trust can people put in reviews of such services? A medical tourism agency, hospital or clinic, doctor or dentist may be tempted to either:

• Create a fake review to promote their own service.
  
• Create a fake review to damage a competitor’s reputation.

We have chosen BazaarVoice as the partner for our Ratings and Reviews system because of their ability to identify fake reviews through the algorithms they run on review submissions, the tracking of IP addresses of reviewers, the validation of email addresses, and BazaarVoice’s experience of moderating thousands of reviews for major clients every month.

We have also warned clients and healthcare providers that any attempt to bias our reviews service will result in immediate removal of all review content.

We'll see how Treatment Abroad Ratings and Reviews develops over the coming months. But we're sure it will help potential medical tourists to differentiate between the good and bad in terms of medical tourism service providers.