Medical tourism as a factor in the effective use of the regional health care potential

Abstract

The growing importance of inbound medical tourism worldwide requires an examination of its effective organisation. The author's position based on the need to assess the existing potential of regional health care for development of medical tourism is substantiated. The concepts of system economics, organisational development, marketing, benchmarking were used as a theoretical and methodological basis for this research. Integrative and multilevel approaches, statistical review, comparative analysis and the method of economic parameters were applied for analysing foreign and Russian experience in the development of medical tourism, as well as for creating the authors' own approach. In order to develop medical tourism, as well as high-tech medical and health resort services in Russia, the study proposes a versatile approach to assessing the effective use of the regional health care potential. It includes methods of economic parameters and rapid analysis for examining the population satisfaction with provided services and determining their export volume. Analysis of health care in Sverdlovsk oblast revealed potential opportunities for exporting high-tech medical services at the regional level. The authors' approach was tested on health care data of Sverdlovsk oblast for 2018-2020. The obtained indicators of the use of the regional health care potential have not reached the target values in both pre-pandemic and pandemic periods: 75% in 2018, 74% in 2019, 53% in 2020. Therefore, on the one hand, effective use of the regional health care potential will contribute to increased satisfaction of the population with high-tech medical and health resort services. On the other hand, it will develop medical tourism as an additional source of income. The proposed author's approach makes it possible at the regional level to objectively assess the effectiveness of using the health care potential, population satisfaction with the provision of high-tech medical care, sanatorium and resort services, and to predict export of medical services.