| The 5 As of Medical Tourism
According to Jagyasi (2008), there are five major actors involved in the decision making process of medical tourists. He calls them the “5 A Factors”: affordable, accessible, available, acceptable and additional.
The EU Directive
The EU Proposal for a Directive on patient’s rights in cross border healthcare was published in 2008. It provides an added stimulus to the already growing number of medical tourists who seek hospital treatment elsewhere in the EU. Its aim is to create a formal framework for cross border healthcare and remove the obstacles that patients face if they wish to travel for treatment in other EU countries (Allen 2009).
The Directive has come about from a desire to create a European market in healthcare, and to some extent as a result of European Court judgments which have upheld the rights of patients to gain reimbursement for treatment in other countries where they have been subject to "undue delay" in their own country. The Directive proposes a number of developments in cross border healthcare, including reimbursement of medical tourists, patient safety and quality issues, European cooperation on healthcare, assessment of new medical technology and standards for e-health, and transfer of patient information between member states.
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