Medical sociology as a heuristic instrument for medical tourism and cross-border healthcare: Comment on "International patients on operation vacation - perspectives of patients travelling to Hungary for orthopedic treatments"

Tomas Mainil

doi:10.15171/ijhpm.2015.37

Medical sociology as a heuristic instrument for medical tourism and cross-border healthcare: Comment on "International patients on operation vacation - perspectives of patients travelling to Hungary for orthopedic treatments"

Int J Health Policy Manag. 2015 Feb 20;4(4):243-4. doi: 10.15171/ijhpm.2015.37. eCollection 2015 Apr.

Author

Tomas Mainil¹

Affiliation

¹ Scaldis Academy, HZ University of Applied Sciences, Vlissingen, The Netherlands. ; CELLO, Sociology of Health, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.

Abstract

In this commentary, we establish a relationship between medical sociology and the study of medical tourism and cross-border healthcare by introducing Ronald Andersen's behavioral model of healthcare use, and linking this model to the recent empirical study of Kovacs et al. on patients travelling to Hungary for orthopedic treatment. Finally, we plead for more measurement in the field of patient mobility.

Keywords: Behavioral Model of Health Services; Cross-border Healthcare; Medical Tourism.