ArticleGlobal health action
Providers' perspectives on inbound medical tourism in Central America and the Caribbean: factors driving and inhibiting sector development and their health equity implications.
Article in Global health action. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 39 citations in OpenAlex.
- Designing an entrepreneurial model in medical tourism for hospitals in Tehran.Journal of education and health promotion · 2026Article
- The north-south policy divide in transnational healthcare: a comparative review of policy research on medical tourism in source and destination countries.Globalization and health · 2020Review
- "Medical tourism will…obligate physicians to elevate their level so that they can compete": a qualitative exploration of the anticipated impacts of inbound medical tourism on health human resources in Guatemala.Human resources for health · 2019Article
- Strategic Analysis of Shiraz Medical Tourism Industry: A Mixed Method Study.Galen medical journal · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMany governments and health care providers worldwide are enthusiastic to develop medical tourism as a service export. Despite the popularity of this policy uptake, there is relatively little known about the specific local factors prospectively motivating and informing development of this sector.
objectiveTo identify common social, economic, and health system factors shaping the development of medical tourism in three Central American and Caribbean countries and their health equity implications.
designIn-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted in Mexico, Guatemala, and Barbados with 150 health system stakeholders. Participants were recruited from private and public sectors working in various fields: trade and economic development, health services delivery, training and administration, and civil society. Transcribed interviews were coded using qualitative data management software, and thematic analysis was used to identify cross-cutting issues regarding the drivers and inhibitors of medical tourism development.
resultsFour common drivers of medical tourism development were identified: 1) unused capacity in existing private hospitals, 2) international portability of health insurance, vis-a-vis international hospital accreditation, 3) internationally trained physicians as both marketable assets and industry entrepreneurs, and 4) promotion of medical tourism by public export development corporations. Three common inhibitors for the development of the sector were also identified: 1) the high expense of market entry, 2) poor sector-wide planning, and 3) structural socio-economic issues such as insecurity or relatively high business costs and financial risks.
conclusionThere are shared factors shaping the development of medical tourism in Central America and the Caribbean that help explain why it is being pursued by many hospitals and governments in the region. Development of the sector is primarily being driven by public investment promotion agencies and the private health sector seeking economic benefits with limited consideration and planning for the health equity concerns medical tourism raises.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.