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NEWS: Jessica Wapner American Medical Association provides guidance on medical tourism BMJ 2008; 337: a575 [Full text]

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The AMA emphasises the positive role of accreditation in the safety of medical and dental tourists

Stephen T Green   (22 July 2008)

The AMA emphasises the positive role of accreditation in the safety of medical and dental tourists 22 July 2008
Stephen T Green, Consultant Physician Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield UK Send response to journal: Re: The AMA emphasises the positive role of accreditation in the safety of medical and dental tourists	Medical tourism is indisputably a big and growing business world- wide, and in the USA its growth has been especially spectacular, at least in part because of the sizeable charges that patients incur when they access healthcare services, either directly or through third party providers such as insurance companies. However, the United Kingdom is not immune to the phenomenon, and there is little doubt that British citizens are increasingly making great use of medical and dental services outside of the UK. The AMA paper takes patient safety seriously, and makes a call for patients who travel abroad to receive medical care to utilise only those facilities accredited by the Joint Commission International (JCI) or other internationally-recognized accrediting organizations. The main raison d'etre of accreditation is to maintain and improve hospital and healthcare staff quality. However, while American Hospitals are well-used to being externally surveyed by non-government groups such as the Joint Commission (and a number of hospitals located outside of the USA have made note of this and acted accordingly), in the main British public-sector hospitals currently do not undergo surveying and accreditation by any independent non-governmental hospital accreditation group. However, at least one UK-based scheme, the Trent Accreditation Scheme or TAS (functioning mainly in the old Trent Health Region) is currently highly active overseas in Hong Kong and is increasingly so in Malta, the Philippines, and other countries where medical tourism services designed for Western populations are actively being developed. British citizens travelling abroad to access healthcare may be advised to take the AMA’s advice seriously and to consider or not an overseas hospital or clinic they are contemplating visiting has been successful in obtaining (and maintaining) accreditation from a recognised accreditation group such as Trent or JCI. Competing interests: The writer is an unpaid voluntary surveyor with the not-for-profit Trent Accreditation Scheme for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers, based in the UK