| A group presentation on medical tourism |
The recently concluded Medical Tourism workshop, conducted by world renowned speaker and trainer Dr Prem received an overwhelming response from the participants attending it. Organised by Constellation Communications & Events in Mumbai, the workshop was held on June 1-2, 2012.
Delegates from across the country attended the workshop. They were from diverse industry sectors and included professionals like medical tourism facilitators, doctors and surgeons, dentists, healthcare consultants, tourism professionals, students etc. Despite being the first edition, the workshop managed to get significant number of delegates from the industry, which proves the demand of such knowledge driven courses in otherwise less explored, specialised fields like medical tourism.
The first day of the workshop began with Dr Prem giving an in-depth analysis of medical tourism as an industry in India and across the globe. He emphasised on the importance of healthcare professionals getting out of the domestic boundaries and exploring opportunities that the global healthcare world provides. The further sessions were on impact, benefits, opportunities and challenges in medical tourism followed by a session on developing a success formula in medical tourism (with Indian perspective).
Apart from his excellent training, Dr Prem also engaged the participants in various activities and short in-house games. This varying methodology made every session more interactive, interesting, and fun.
Post lunch session on the first day was on marketing and brand development, which signified the importance of building a brand not only for a company or a product but also for an individual. Dr Prem highlighted the fact that an individual in himself can be a brand. He explained the strategies in marketing medical tourism amongst the target audience, and building as well as managing brand reputation. He emphasised on the importance of online media in current times and how professionals can make the maximum use of online media for developing their business.
| Delegates attending the workshop | Participants came from across the country |
The second day of the workshop focussed on few management related topics like lean management followed by discussing the role of facilitators in medical tourism and developing international patient department. Panel discussion was also organised on this day with Dr Pratiksha G Gandhi, a leading preventive cardiologist in Mumbai and Dr R Krishan Kumar Raheja, Healthcare Consultant and Surgeon Captain (Retd.), Indian Navy being on panel along with Dr Prem. Dr Gandhi being associated with IPC, one of India’s largest chain of preventive and non-surgical cardiac care, spoke in detail on quality of healthcare for international patients and the necessary measures one has to take to develop international patient department as per the global standards. Dr Raheja highlighted the importance of education in medical tourism and how such workshops can put light on ongoing issues in the medical tourism industry and suggest solutions to overcome these issues.
Post the panel discussion, Dr Prem spoke on evaluation of medical tourism destinations and identifying customer needs ad delivering customer services in global healthcare. This session was extremely well received by the participants, as it involved minute details on what customers look forward while selecting a medical tourism destination.
At the end of the programme, participants were given the certificate of participation along with a copy of Medical Tourism Guidebook signed by Dr Prem himself. Conclusively, the workshop exceeded the expectations of the organisers not only in terms of number of participants attending it but also the response from all the attendants.