Medical tourism can be defined as the process of traveling outside the country of residence for the purpose of receiving medical care. Growth in the popularity of medical tourism has captured the attention of policy-makers, researchers and the media. Originally, the term referred to the travel of patients from less-developed countries to developed nations in pursuit of the treatments not available in their homeland.

Today we are experiencing both qualitative and quantitative shifts in patient mobility, as people travel from richer to less-developed countries in order to access health services. Such shift is mostly driven by the relative low-cost of treatments in less developed nations, the availability of inexpensive flights and increased marketing and online consumer information about the availability of medical services.

What really puts the word "tourism" in medical tourism concept is that people often stay in the foreign country after the medical procedure. Travelers can thus take advantage of their visit by sightseeing, taking day trips or participating in any other traditional tourism activities.

This industry is growing 35 percent annually. What percentage of that growth is your organization part of? Have you changed, adapted or stagnated in the past several years? Why have you yet to develop a long-term strategy? Is your business a sailboat without a sail, floating aimlessly in an open ocean? How can your organization improve, adapt, change and succeed?

The content of the training program “Organize and promote Medical Tourism” is the following:

• Classification and recording
• Factors which ensure the development of medical tourism selection
• Examples of medical tourism packages and destinations of medical tourism
• Insurance products related to medical tourism

• The market sizes
• User population survey for Cross- border care

• Operational mechanisms of medical tourism
• Conditions of services of medical tourism cases

-Health structures with features to provide medical tourism services

-Legal framework and standards of medical tourism

• Institutional and legal issues in international practice

• Quality assurance
• Selection criteria of the international patients
• Accreditation and certification of hospitals and health services
• Launch of international operators certification of medical services
• Selection of an international certification system by the provider

• Certification for “Medical tourism friendly hotels”
• Certification for business and organizations in general

• The importance of the cooperations and synergies
• Conditions for the medical sector
• Conditions for the hotel industry
• Configuration of all-inclusive packages
• Specialization in medical tourism products
• Pilot programs of integrated local municipal tourism networks
• Economic benefit