Books on Medical Travel,
U.S. Health Care Reform,
and Globalization

State of the Heart: A Medical Tourist's True Story of Lifesaving Surgery in India (Hardcover) 
Maggi Ann Grace - 269 pages - 2007

Rated 5 stars on Amazon.

Howard Staab was diagnosed by his doctor as having “a flailing mitral valve with severe mitral regurgitation”, a severe heart problem that required immediate surgery. Although Mr. Staab owned a successful business, he chose not to have health insurance. So, in September 2004, Maggi Ann Grace accompanied Mr. Staab to New Delhi, India for the heart surgery he needed, but could not afford in North Carolina.

In New Delhi, Dr. Naresh Trehan replaced Howard’s mitral valve at Escorts Heart Institute and Research Center for a total cost of $6,700, as opposed to the estimated $200,000 at a local North Carolina hospital. Mr. Staab was the first American to have heart surgery at Escorts.

Maggi Ann Grace and Howard Staab testified before a US Senate committee on this experience. Read their testimony in this article: Special Senate Hearings on Medical Tourism

Patients Beyond Borders: Everybody's Guide to Affordable, World-Class Medical Tourism
Josef Woodman - 336 pages - 2007

A practical how-to guide for Americans considering medical treatment abroad. Includes a directory of medical providers in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Mexico, Brazil, Caribbean, Costa Rica, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and South Africa.

A Singapore edition of Patients Beyond Borders has been released. As Singapore is included in the original edition, Medical Tourism Insight asked the author to clarify the purpose of the regional edition.

Does the target audience of this edition differ from the original edition?
Woodman: Yes. The Singapore Edition was produced as a collaborative effort between Healthy Travel Media, Singapore Medicine and the Singapore Tourism Board. We expect the target audience will be more regional, tho by no means small. That is to say, patients and professsionals hailing from countries neighboring Singapore that form most of Singapore's medical travel business: Indonesia, Australia, Japan, China, Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam, et al. The target audience for the original "Worldwide Edition" is the English-speaking healthcare consumer seeking introductory and comprehensive information on becoming a successful medical traveler.

Why would someone buy the Singapore-only version rather than the general edition?
Woodman: Two reasons: 1) If one is specifically considering traveling to Singapore for medical care (the country attracts some 400,000 international patients annually), then the book provides far more in-depth information than a general overview could possibly hope to provide; 2) If one is interested in medical travel, Singapore in my opinion is a first-rate example of how a country should conduct itself as a medical travel destination. While not a political or economic treatise, the book contains ample information for professionals, academics and others in the profession. Long-term, we hope the book acts as a beacon for the way healthcare ought to be conducted in other countries--including the U.S.!

The Medical Tourism Travel Guide: Your Complete Reference to Top-Quality, Low-Cost Dental, Cosmetic, Medical Care & Surgery Overseas (Paperback)
Paul Gahlinger, MD PhD - 328 pages - 2008

New book - Summer 2008

Beauty from Afar:
A Medical Tourist's Guide to Affordable and Quality Cosmetic Care Outside the U.S.
Jeff Schult - 224 pages - 2006

A guide for prospective medical travelers with a focus on cosmetic surgery.

Medical Tourism in Developing Countries
Milica Z. Bookman and Karla R. Bookman - 240 pages - 2007

Written by an economist and an attorney, this is a study of how medical tourism can be a strategy for economic development. The book covers: supply of medical tourism (private sector/public sector and what services they offer); demand (who are the international patients, where do they go and why, where do they come from and why); advantages that some host countries (such as Cost Rica, Philippines, India, Argentina, etc) have in promoting the medical tourist industry; obstacles (legal, political, etc.) that they encounter in their efforts to position themselves as host countries; and a review of how macroeconomic policy can actually help public health in host countries.

Who Killed Health Care?: America's $2 Trillion Medical Problem - and the Consumer-Driven Cure
by Prof. Regina Herzlinger - 240 pages - 2007

The author is a professor at Harvard Business School and a thought-leading on consumer-driven health care.

Redefining Health Care:
Creating Value-Based Competition on Results
Prof. Michael E. Porter and Prof. Elizabeth Olmstead Teisberg - 506 pages - 2006

The authors are strategy gurus from Harvard Business School and the University of Virginia.

Healthy Competition:
What's Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It
Michael F. Cannon and Michael D. Tanner - 182 pages - 2005

This book is also about U.S. health care reform, and includes several quotes from Redefining Health Care (above). The authors are Cato Institute scholars, who advocate consumer-driven health care. They favor Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), but recommend some modifications to the existing legislation.

The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

The World is leveling and the U.S. isn't ready. Whatever can be done will be done. Will it happen by you or to you? Best selling book about globalization written by a New York Times foreign-affairs columnist.

Watch a video of Friedman's The World is Flat 3.0 speech on MIT World.