While many health facilities across the globe are struggling financially, one leading private hospital, Thailand's Bumrungrad, has maintained its revenue growth projection this year at about 15% over last year. This is helped by foreigners visiting the hospital, who made up nearly 50% of Bumrungrad’s patient base last year.
Industry experts say medical travel insurance is crucial for those embarking on a trip, as the unexpected can happen. Medical evacuation is typically included in travel policies, but used only in emergency circumstances. Travelers need more assurance, and there are several programs that can help.
Thailand's new Public Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai says among his top agenda items include accelerating enforcement of the medical malpractice victims' fund bill, increasing allowances and developing careers for medical workers, and upgrading primary care units as community hospitals for rural areas. And he has already established a committee to look into these issues.
Measures are now being taken to help deal with the UK's aging population, which is set to cause a huge rise in the number of older people living with long-term illnesses. According to experts, by 2025, there will be a significant increase in the number of elderly patients suffering from heart disease, osteoporosis, and dementia.
It is estimated that as many as 150,000 Britons will turn to medical travel for treatments and procedures—those not provided or not fully funded by the NHS—this year. Savings are often as much as 50%, which includes travel and accommodation expenses. And according to experts, this trend is growing among Britons.
SonoSite, Inc. has introduced the S-Women's Health ultrasound tool. The newest product in SonoSite's S Series product line is a "custom-designed solution to enable women's health clinicians to provide comprehensive care in the patient exam room," according to a release. The system is configured to work with four broadband transducers to provide high-resolution superficial, abdominal, vascular, and pelvic imaging.
The 2009 conference NextMed: Design for/the Well Being is scheduled for January 19-22, 2009 in Long Beach, CA. The annual conference examines emerging data-centered technologies for medical care and education.
A $10 billion investment in health information technology as part of a planned economic recovery package would create or retain 212,105 jobs in one year, according to the Washington, DC-based think tank Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. The ITIF endorsed health IT spending, along with spending on broadband networks and a smart power grid, as components of a larger economic stimulus package Congress is expected to introduce. ITIF President Robert Atkinson said the organization does not necessarily advocate the amounts of spending that it analyzed. but the analysis of the job-creation effects could be extrapolated to a larger or smaller amount of spending.
President-elect Barack Obama has proposed a massive effort to modernize healthcare by making all health records standardized and electronic. The plan includes computerizing all health records within five years, but it won't be easy, experts say. Only about 8% of the nation's 5,000 hospitals, and 17% of its 800,000 physicians, currently use the kind of common computerized record-keeping systems that Obama envisions for the entire country. Concerns about patient privacy must be addressed first as well, and the country suffers a dearth of skilled workers necessary to build and implement the necessary technology.
A study by Janco, a Park City, UT-based IT consulting firm that conducts salary surveys, found that the mean compensation for CIOs in large enterprises is now $168,839, a 6% decrease from a similar study it issued a year ago. In midsize organizations, the current average is $163,211, a drop-off of nearly 5%, according to the study. Janco cited reductions in bonuses and fringe benefits for the compensation declines.
