It's no secret that the level of medicine varies from country to country. For instance, while Israeli, Japanese, American, and German doctors successfully operate on patients with the most complex tumors, most third-world countries cannot boast of such efficiency. However, even if you do not live in a country with an underdeveloped economy, you will surely still want to find the best of the best hospitals for yourself or for your loved ones. That’s where medical tourism platforms development becomes a real game-changer.
This is precisely how the phenomenon of medical tourism comes into play - when a person, not being a citizen of a particular country, goes there with the goal of healing or treating a specific disease. Diving a bit deeper into the topic, let’s see how people with health issues can find the best doctors in the world using modern web technologies.
The Growth of Medical Tourism
Let’s kick things off with a general medical tourism industry analysis, as it has long become a whole separate niche.
Thus, according to the official data of Patients Beyond Borders, the global capitalization of medical tourism ranges from $65bn-$87.5bn. At the same time, the annual growth is a record 15-25%, which gives hope that this business industry will be relevant for many years to come (in particular, up until remotely controlled robotics appear in the seediest village).
Along with the medical measures for solving serious health problems, plastic surgery is gaining especial popularity. This is partly explained by the popularization of Instagram, partly by the equalization of working conditions for both sexes (if in the 50s of the last century it was difficult for a woman to earn herself not only plastic surgery but something less expensive, today, women around the world have the opportunity to independently earn their bread, although a small gap between the sexes in the level of salaries exists to this day).
Consequently, doctors have yet another niche (plastic surgery) that is in great demand these days, which can also be promoted internationally.
How to Attract Medical Tourists to Your Hospital?
There is no doubt that today, the most effective way to get new customers is to have a dedicated profile or a full website online and promote it.
Firstly, it helps to reach the widest possible target audience, even in view of the fact that the provision of medical services is a local matter. In really serious cases, if you already have significant authority in the medical community, people will be ready to get an appointment even if they live on the other side of the planet.
Secondly, since the Internet is a source of social proof, you can form the necessary opinion about yourself and make a kind of advertising, simply relying on the feedback of your patients.
Lastly, an online presence is the most budgetary way of self-promotion, since maintaining a social media profile, for instance, doesn’t require any investment (perhaps only in advertising).
As for the common online self-presentation formats, there are several methods:
- a social media profile (on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn);
- a corporate or personal blog;
- a dedicated website or landing;
- an online cabinet based on the optimized for medical tourism business platform.
It’s difficult to say which one is more effective. There are socially active doctors who, on their own or with the help of content managers, maintain profiles in social networks. But today, as a rule, having an account on Facebook is a kind of “default” requirement and serves more to receive live feedback from current and future patients.
Obviously, a blog also requires constant activity - though, mainly not in visual but in text format. You can post new content not so often, but its volume and information load should be at a fundamentally different level than in the case of social networks.
If we’re talking about a website, this is a good place to present yourself in the most favorable light. In fact, this will be your resume, in which you can accessibly, vividly illuminate all the facets of your expertise.
As for the more complex platform for international medical tourism, you go for a more serious approach that gets people more engaged and interested than any social media content.
In addition, such decisions always contain a certain system of evaluation and feedback. Thus, if you receive regular positive feedback from your patients, this will move you to the very top of the ranking of health workers in your profile. Note that in this case, you will not need to put regular efforts into keeping your profile at the top - your satisfied patients will do this instead of you.
So far, there are not so many platforms for medical tourism in the world, and they all have their own nuances that don’t allow them to become widely employed (which is a big drawback because in many cases, medical services are not required for those who are “deeply in the subject ” and to people who have not previously encountered serious health issues at all).
We offer authentic services for the development of a medical tourism online platform. We can deliver you not only the most powerful tool for promoting the services of your medical center but also a source of additional income (your new medical tourism platform will provide great monetization opportunities).
Developing basic functionality of a medical tourism platform
Decided to go for a win-win solution to attract patients and customers from all over the world and launch your own platform? Keep in mind that medical tourism platforms’ development is commonly based on several major components.
If we take a look at the top site in the Google search results - the medicaltourism.com platform, we will see the following:
- First off, there is a tab for patients where they can leave a request, choose a service provider, choose a treatment direction, and also compare prices;
- The second menu tab is dedicated to medical service providers. Here you can get a certification, as well as become a member of the Medical Tourism community and start to offer your services within the platform;
- The third tab contains information on conferences that are planned for or have already been held by the platform-hosting organization;
- The fourth tab is dedicated to insights - expert information that may be useful to medical institutions for professional development;
- The fifth tab collects a number of authentic magazine issues;
- Lastly, there is a contact form (with separate blanks for patients and for medical facilities).
Keep in mind also a homepage CTA with the “Get a Quote” button that motivates people to use your platform and a search field that makes the overall interface ultimately accessible.
Implementing all these functional elements, you get a basic medical tourism platform that can already bring profits. Surely, the functionality can be customized further and added up with a number of new features based on user feedback and developer recommendations.
Just leave a submission if you wish to discuss further details and get your platform done by experienced professionals.
Conclusion
As you can see, thanks to modern IT, people who need medical care can find highly qualified specialists anywhere in the world to solve their specific problems. In particular, with our help, you can implement a really cool global medical tourism marketplace that would bring together potential patients and doctors from different countries.
Contact us right now to discuss all the details of your medical tourism business plan and find out an approximate cost of a readymade project.
