Dato' Mohr, Masters in Healthcare Administration from Minnesota Public School. He is a Fellow of American College of Healthcare Executive and has been the CEO & CFO for various hospitals in California, Kansas, Tennessee, & Michigan, USA. Besides developing several medical science companies Dato' Mohr soulely carried the recovery of two bankrupt hospital in 1990's. From 1997 onwards he is CEO for Penang Adventist Hospital in Malaysia and on board of many hospitals in India, Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal & Singapore and On July 2005, the Governor of Penang awarded him Dato' Ship for service to Malaysia.
Mr. Naresh Jadeja : What according to you promotes an individual to consider crossing his home country borders for healthcare?
Dato' Mohr : Precisely following three issues can be the deciding factors
Availability : Availability means the surgery is either not at all available at home or the queue is too long to wait for, or even in the absence of queue, the price is so high that it's not affordable for an individual. By either ways the non availability or the in accessibility of healthcare promotes to healthcare tourism.
Quality : Is the other factor. But quality could be defined as a cloud, for everybody approaches it differently. It varies for a person coming from Harvard versus what could be the view of a man from Kansas or Burma or even India for that matter. Well again in India one can experience tremendous variations depending upon the geographical presence. Thus quality is a variable and defining factor for buyer considering surgery abroad.
Price : The third and most mitigating factor is price. People from New York won't fly to Penang Adventist, were I live, for heart surgery although our outcomes are identical to that of United States. Unless we offer them something which is unavailable in New York City at an affordable cost like Stem Cell, which we do a lot and are at an advantage? Secondly its non affordability in New York City which could cost them out of pocket surgery expenses of $ 80,000 could divert them to us where they can get it done for $ 7,000. Hence price is and will remain the mitigating factor for medical travel. Also a very interesting factor is variable quality. For example A heart surgery abroad could mildly differ. Mild variation here means that they have to believe we are as good as New York City where the chances of dyeing on the table are very low, almost nil. Now if the difference is about 10 % versus that of New York City they are probably not coming for surgery. Similarly if we are doing Tummy Tuck and there is little variation one can live with it, as it saves me a lot of money. So these are the possible factors and people end up with availability, then with a crisp cross negotiation between quality and price.
This depicts that a bit varied quality could be considered for better cost, but we don't do so at Penang Adventist. We have to realize that basically we are in a commodity market and we are selling a commodity be it Open Heart Surgery, a face Lift, new knees its all based on all three factors.
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