Saturday, August 25, 2007
David Vequist - Forecasting Future Trends
On Sept. 6th, Dr. David Vequist, University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, TX, will present a paper on medical tourism, focused on forecasting future trends from the data. This paper is part of the sixth annual international smart-sourcing conference at the Hilton Resort, Atlantic City, NJ. I got in touch with Dr. Vequist, and asked him to provide an overview of what his paper will be about. He was kind enough to provide a snapshot, with statistics and a brief analysis. Dr. David Vequist in his own words:
What I have done is this paper is to report on the state of medical tourism from various news sources and journals from the past several months to summarize the current trends in this industry. I summarized the articles and categorized them in terms of countries being visited and procedures being performed. In addition, I used the data collected to forecast what some of the future trends for medical tourism will be in the near future.
I collected data pulled from the last several months of RSS feeds from Yahoo. I received news feeds, almost daily, from any articles that mentioned Medical Tourism in the content. I then categorized the collected data based on the countries and procedures mentioned in the news articles.
This is what I found and what I think will be happening in the near future.
In the articles I reviewed, I found that SE Asia countries (including India - which was the most frequently mentioned country) made up the most frequently mentioned region for medical tourism (as expected). However, it appears that there are several trends present in the data including, the frequency of Latin American countries being found in news reports regarding medical tourism. Countries like Mexico and Costa Rica are increasing seeming to attract medical tourists particularly for Dental and Cosmetic Surgery. Another trend I found was that Cosmetic Surgery (which used to be the main staple of the medical tourism movement) appears to be taking a back-seat to traditional medical procedures like General Surgeries (e.g., hip replacement surgery) and Heart/Cardiac Care (e.g., angioplasty). In addition, there appears to be a trend of healthcare procedures (e.g, hip replacement, heart procedures, cosmetic surgery, dentures, etc.) being marketed towards the aging baby-boomer populations in the USA (which, when you look at the population demographic trends [in the US ] is not very surprising).
I am recommending that further research be undertaken that uses RSS feeds to validate this research methodology and the findings of this study.
What I have done is this paper is to report on the state of medical tourism from various news sources and journals from the past several months to summarize the current trends in this industry. I summarized the articles and categorized them in terms of countries being visited and procedures being performed. In addition, I used the data collected to forecast what some of the future trends for medical tourism will be in the near future.
I collected data pulled from the last several months of RSS feeds from Yahoo. I received news feeds, almost daily, from any articles that mentioned Medical Tourism in the content. I then categorized the collected data based on the countries and procedures mentioned in the news articles.
This is what I found and what I think will be happening in the near future.
In the articles I reviewed, I found that SE Asia countries (including India - which was the most frequently mentioned country) made up the most frequently mentioned region for medical tourism (as expected). However, it appears that there are several trends present in the data including, the frequency of Latin American countries being found in news reports regarding medical tourism. Countries like Mexico and Costa Rica are increasing seeming to attract medical tourists particularly for Dental and Cosmetic Surgery. Another trend I found was that Cosmetic Surgery (which used to be the main staple of the medical tourism movement) appears to be taking a back-seat to traditional medical procedures like General Surgeries (e.g., hip replacement surgery) and Heart/Cardiac Care (e.g., angioplasty). In addition, there appears to be a trend of healthcare procedures (e.g, hip replacement, heart procedures, cosmetic surgery, dentures, etc.) being marketed towards the aging baby-boomer populations in the USA (which, when you look at the population demographic trends [in the US ] is not very surprising).
I am recommending that further research be undertaken that uses RSS feeds to validate this research methodology and the findings of this study.
Thank you Dr. Vequist, for sharing this valuable information and analysis with us. Stay tuned in the coming week for a post with some stunning statistics regarding medical tourism in Tijuana, Mexico.
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