Fortis - Parkway combination on medical tourism

Fortis - Parkway combination on medical tourism

March 2010

Medical tourism driven global healthcare acquisition, and welcomes Fortis' acquisition

Medical Tourism industry is welcoming Fortis healthcare's acquisition of a 23.9% stake in Parkway Holdings Limited. This strategic move will not only give global foot prints to Fortis but it will also help parkway hospitals to benefit from Fortis's integrated health systems, standards, knowledge pool and experience.

Top destinations for medical tourism are India, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Mexico and by this deal, fortis will have presence in all major medical tourism market in the world. Their top hospitals in India, Singapore and Malaysia will not only have a complete list medical procedures like stem cell therapy and organ transplant available but it will also have major medical travel destination to choose from.

When some of Parkway hospital claims more then 40 % international patients ration, it is oblivious that Fortis is very well focusing on medical tourism. Chairman of the Group Mr. Malvinder singh mentioned the same in his statement. "Parkway's strong presence in Malaysia with the Pantai Group of Hospitals gives us great confidence. This acquisition will significantly expand our footprint across the region and place us strategically for geographical and clinical leadership in Asia, a big step closer to our vision of establishing a global healthcare delivery network,"

Along with 3 top hospitals in Singapore, East Shore, Gleneagles and Mount Elizabeth Parkway has 39 international patient assistance centers in 17 countries throughout the world. None other hospital group has such a big number of patient assistance centers in the world. This assistance centers brings local presence, local touch and local confidence to the area they serve. It helps to lower the fear of traveling to another country or city for medical treatment.

Post Acquisition

Fortis & Parkway Asian network
62 Hospitals

Total Number of Beds in network
10,000 beds

Fortis Strenght
Low Cost healthcare model

Parkway's Strength
Cutting edge technology with innovative medical specialty like Stem Cell Therapy and Organ transplantation

Jointly the Group will offer
Qualitative services for medical tourism. Customers based pricing structure (medical surgery, service opt).

Group M.D. Shivinder Singh's statement clearly indicates group's focus on medical tourism. He said,"The potential synergy benefits from this integration includes multi-specialty capabilities, access to cutting-edge technology in stem-cell therapy and organ transplantation, sharing of medical technologies and know how, exchange of human talent, optimizing costs of operations, high brand equity through integration of premium healthcare brands in Asia as well as a fillip to medical tourism initiatives with multiple options at different price points for customers."

Mr Naresh Jadeja, President IWHTA visiting

Parkway groups flagship hospital Mount Elizabeth, Singapore

357-bed Mount Elizabeth Hospital performs the largest number of cardiac surgeries & neurosurgeries in the private sector in the region. The hospital is accredited with the Joint Commission International (JCI); and is the first private hospital in Asia to win the Asian Management Award for exceptional people development and management.

Healthcare industry needs long term planning and Fortis hospital's strategies has proved that they believe in it. After this acquisition, Fortis will have a great Pan-Asian presence with the network to 62 hospitals with combined bed strength of over 10,000. It will also have access to cutting edge technologies like stem cell therapy, organ transplantation and multi specialty capabilities.

Experts voice

Mr. Daniel Snyder,Ex CEO Parkway & Dr Lim Choek Peng, CEO and

Ex. Vice Chairman of Parkway about the acquisition.

Dan during his recent discussion with IWHTA, said "It is a fabulous move. It create a big opportunity. Fortis's integrated health systems, standards, experience and man power skills and knowledge will help parkway to achieve its goals."

 

 

Dr. Lim Cheok Peng, Parkway's CEO and Executive Vice Chairman

"We are pleased to welcome fortis as a new major shareholder of Parkway. There are lots of synergies which parkway can leverage on and we look forward to working with Fortis to take Parkway to the next level."

Dear Healthcare Travel Industry Stakeholders,

IWHTA is delighted to share the highlights of 'International Medical Tourism and Travel 2010' conference that took place in Singapore from 1-3 March 2010. The conferences attracted speakers and participants from USA, Middle East, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. The participants were hospitals CEOs, Medical Directors, Marketing Executives, Government Representatives, Professors, Consultants and Doctors. IWHTA was the supporting organization and the official online media partner for IMT&T 2010. Here is the highlights of the Day-1 sessions

Mr Naresh Jadeja, 
President,

International Wellness and Healthcare Travel Association

IWHTA president Mr. Naresh Jadeja applied his vast international experience in his presentation on 'Revising long term strategies to develop the medical tourism sector in Asia'. He explained the importance of word of mouth referrals and local touch in publicity and branding. He showed the keys to achieve success through different strategies. He explained Medical vacations, volunteer match, and innovative 'Donate a Surgery' program. It was helpful for many to understand why medical tourism has not picked up well and what is required. His presentation got very curious questions from the participants as they said many of the approaches are presented for the first time in this medical travel industry.

Chairperson, Day - One

Dr Jason Yap, Director of Healthcare Services in the Singapore Tourism Board

Chair person for day one Dr Yap is one of the pioneers of Medical Travel industry, the key person behind 'Singapore Medicine' and many medical travel concepts. Dr Yap Kick started the conference with his presentation on 'Building brand loyalty and customer retention in medical tourism - hard won privilege that must be earned.' explaining a true picture of Medical Travel Industry. He also present his views on Revenue model, along with the possible ways to raise revenue by increasing channels, no. of customers, no. of visits, no. of transactions, no. of services that too with greatly associating words viz: Know, Like, Can, Choose, Access, Heal, Recover, Smile with both patients and hospital services.

Dr Christine Cheng,

MB.BCh (Wales), FRCA (UK)

'Capitalizing the medical tourism market for the Aesthetic medicine' was the next presentation from Dr. Christine Cheng of Simply Aesthetic Pte., Ltd, Singapore. She explained the growing market and her experience on different marketing strategies. She very well shared the pros and cons of different approaches and winning formulae of success. She denied the fact that you can combine medical treatment and Tourism in one trip. She said that patients cannot go to tourist places with stitches,scars and limited energy and said that I always discourage my patients to engage in any such tourism activities.

Dr. Paul Chang, Managing Director for JCI,

He presented his thoughts on 'Preparing an organization for the Accreditation Journey'. Also he emphasized that it is a never ending journey and requires commitment from top physician and lead management team to better successed in accreditation process. He addressed many doubts about the approximate cost of the survey and what to do before you opt for the survey.

Dr. Bu Castro,

Corporate Legal counsel,

Private Hospitals Association of the phillippines.

Bu Castro, Corporate Legal Counsel of Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines did a presentation on 'Safefuarding your organizsation from paralysing legal vulnerabilities in medical tourism.' He talked about the forms that needs to get signed from patients based on international law and United Nations treaty. His examples on contract and importance of notice posters really cleared doubts of the participants about how to survive in the legal complexity.

Ms Vasanti Pillay

President

Ayurvedic Association of Singapore,

Ms. Vasanthy from Ayurveda Association of Singapore talked about 'Integrating Ayurveda and how it could promote medical tourism in the county' and her efforts to include ayurveda in the Singapore Hospitals as a alternative medicine.

Datuk Mohd Radzif Yunus,

Group Managing Director of IJN Holdings

Datuk Yunus talked about 'Developing your human resources Management strategies to achieve service excellence'. His experience and knowledge in the field of managing and developing world class facility helped to understand the importance of it.

Dr Balvinder Thakkar,

B.D.S., M.D.S. (Orthodontics)

CEO, Jaipur Dental Hospital and Orthodontics Centre

Final session for Day-1 was on 'Escaping to a new destination for a "Dental Holiday" to take advantage of the advanced technology and first class treatment. Dr. Balvinder Thakkar, Dental Surgeon and Orthodontists from Jaipur Dental Hospital and Orthodontic Center, India, presented pros of 'Incredible India' and dental tourism opportunities along with regular tourism. This young doctor from India was much exited to tap that 6 million foreign traveler visiting Jaipur, India. His plans on how to save vacation days of the patients and at the same time give them the best dental plans was very convincing.

Day - Two

Prof Dr Aw Tar Choon,

Senior Consultant,

Changi General Hospital.

Chairman for Day - 2 was Prof Dr Aw Tar Choon, Senior Consultant and widely travelled speaker, He "shared the importance of laboratory in Hospital services." He considered investment in the pre analytical processes as the best one and favored pneumatic tube transfer of samples in big hospitals. He showed how any laboratory can achieve success by proper design and tools. His neutral opinion on many topics showed his vast experience in this field

Dr Jacob Thomas,

Group medical Advisor for Sime Darby Health

Dr. Jacob Thomas, Group medical Advisor for Sime Darby Health and President of Associaiton of Private Hospitals Malaysia, did presentation on 'Procuring the state of the art medical devices and equipments- the driving forces in medical technology'. He explained success of Sime Darby Health - Malaysia through different aspects and discussed what to look for when adding equipment to your healthcare facility. He stressed on need, type of service/location, Ability to overcome, timing, appropriateness/utilization, impact on medical travel and patient outcomes as the decision making factors. He also explained importance of negative return investments like Da Vinci robotic surgery, High Field iMRI and Proton Beam Therapy.

Dr. Tshepo Maaka,

Medical Director of Serokolo Health Tourism,

A very well organized case study was presented by Dr. Tshepo Maaka, Medical Director of Serokolo Health Tourism, South Africa. "Carving out an unusual niche to capture a share of the "Medical Safari" market" was her topics. Her more than 6 years of experience in developing Medical Travel industry in south Africa was the key factor behind this.

Dr. Kongkiat Kespechara,
Hospital Director of Bangkok Phuket Hospital.

Dr. Kongkiat Kespechara, Hospital Director of Bangkok Phuket Hospital, Thailand discussed 'Collaborating with medical tourism facilitators to create comprehensive and customized medical travel packages'. He shared Bangkok Hospital phuket's strategies to develop and train medical tourism facilitators through training in SOPs, Medical Terminology etc. He also shared growth of his hospital through increase number of international patients and what extra mile they go in terms of providing services to their patients. He said our hospital has a new cloth and look advisory who help patients to look better after weight loss surgery which was very unique in this industry.

Dr. Kostas I. Papadopoulos,
CEO of Thai StemLife.

At the end of the conference Dr Kostas I. Papadopoulos, CEO of THAI StemLife, Thailand presented on Tapping "stem cell medical tourism" to take advantage of the growing significance of marrow transplants.

Message from Naresh Jadeja,

President,
IWHTA.

Overall it was a very good, unbiased conference with widely experienced speakers and provided very good networking opportunities for participants. Everyone was happy to be a part of this growing industry and wanted to find and try new innovative ways to promote medical travel in their country/hospital. Debate over the use of world 'Medical Tourism' is still going on and time will tell its fate. IWHTA will keep supporting medical travel conferences and exibitons like this in future in order to strengthen ties and intensify collaborative efforts with other healthcare related organizations to undertake a major industry renovation and ultimately advance the healthcare travel industry.

International Wellness and Healthcare Travel Association
113 Calvert Ave,
Edison, New Jersey 08820
Email: info@iwhta.org
URL: http://www.iwhta.org/