Medical Tourism Programming Expert to Speak at Global Summit on Health & Wellness Tourism in India

Feb. 11, 2013 - PRLog -- Organized by the Connecting Healthcare Secretariat in Delhi, India, The Summit, with the motto “Connecting Healthcare” will provide an international platform to bring all inhabitants from Healthcare & Wellness Sector to be under the same roof and discuss about the globalization of Medical Tourism Industry. The event is going to be a perspective centralization of global tourism Industry and will be followed by an exclusive exhibition to showcase the new technological step-ups of the industry.  Chief Minister, Smt. Sheila Dixit, of the Government of NCT Delhi, and Dr. Ashok Kumar Walia, Minister of Health & Family Welfare, Government of NCT Delhi will be on hand to welcome delegates, along with government officials from the Minister of Health & Family Welfare,  Tourism Ministry, and Communications, and IT from the Government of India.

The Central Advisory Board of the Conference includes Dr Pratap C Reddy, Chairman of Apollo Hospital Group, Dr (Prof) P.K. Dave, Medical Director of Rockland Hospitals, and Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty, Chairman of Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospitals, and developer of a huge outreach hospital capital project in the Cayman Islands.

The summit will span three days, 15-17th March 2013.

Dr. Todd has been appointed to the Core Committee along with fellow medical tourism global thought leaders, Elizabeth Boultbee from the UK and Ms. Christina de Moraes, Founder of IMTCC, USA, a new medical tourism nonprofit organization.

Maria K Todd, MHA PhD, CEO and founder of The Mercury Healthcare Companies will be on hand for this event to speak about how hotels can prepare to participate more aggressively in medical tourism and health travel. Todd organized the largest globally integrated health delivery system® in the world, with headquarters in Denver, Colorado.  The Mercury Health Travel (htttp://mercuryhealthtravel.com) network is designed as an accountable health care organization for use by self-funded employer group health plans and has more cloud-based technology and healthcare management infrastructure than most physician-hospital organizations in America. It has more than 15,000 approved surgical facilities that offer bundled case rate pricing in the USA and 95 other countries, similar to the program that was announced on January 31, 2013 by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) in the USA. Mercury has offered bundled case rates for surgery since 1997.

The company also owns a large medical tourism boutique consultancy with 65 subject matter experts distributed across five continents, working collectively as the Mercury Advisory Group.

She is the author of three books on medical tourism, including the Handbook of Medical Tourism Program Development, the Medical Tourism Facilitators’ Handbook, and the Employer’s Guide to Medical Tourism Benefit Design. These three complement her eight other books on managed care, physician hospital integration and alignment, and concierge medicine. The first two books focus on the travel and logistics coordination aspect of medical tourism while the latter is aimed at government, hospital and hotelier audiences to help governments and integrated health systems launch a medical tourism programs at a hospital, surgery center, clinic or spa, many of which are undertaken as a public-private partnership (PPP).

Dr Todd will travel to India on the 10th of March, immediately following four days of training and capacity development at the Cleveland Clinic, and participate in pre-conference ministerial summits and round table discussions. The program will then official open with 3 days of summit, 20 keynote speakers, and 450 delegates from 12 countries. In addition, a hosted buyer program has been arranged for medical tourism facilitator firms.  She will remain in India for just over one week.

Todd has been asked to deliver three different one-hour workshop presentations on a variety of topics. The first, on Indian Healthcare Facilities and Infrastructure, where she will present highlights and insight on opportunities for Indian capital development healthcare projects where Indian hospitals have been invited to extend their brand into developing countries in Northern, Eastern and Western Africa. She has been working in this area of global health capital development projects in Nigeria and in Mexico and brings current insight into the healthcare infrastructure challenges as both a former hospital administrator, a former surgical nurse, and more recently as a lead consultant in the new hospital construction public-private partnership development projects and medical free trade zones.

She will also give a second presentation on Medical Tourism National Policy and Opportunities at the 1st International Ministerial Summit, sharing some lessons learned in other nations, along with contrasts and comparison of what India might consider to more formally organize the Indian medical tourism sector to keep India at the forefront of medical tourism growth.

She will deliver a third presentation for the general sessions, whereby she will share lessons learned and insights into global employer expectations from medical tourism suppliers. Her data will come from firsthand experiences at Mercury, as well as research from her forthcoming 11th book, The Employers’ Guide to Medical Tourism Benefit Design. She will discuss the economics, liabilities, and practical issues of medical tourism contracting with employer-paid medical tourism, what employers and insurers want to buy, how they want to buy it, what’s most important from the buyers’ perspective, and make suggestions on how the medical tourism suppliers should prepare to enter negotiations with that market segment.

Todd often conducts workshops on medical tourism planning and development through the Healthcare Business Institute, which uses training facilities located at the University of Denver’s Cable Center. The workshops attract small groups of medical and health industry professionals from around the world to Denver to learn how to coordinate the logistics and marketing of medical tourism and surgical travel for patients. They tour hotels, learn how to inspect hospitals, hotels, airports, and interview executive staff in food and beverage, security, and housekeeping to understand the logistics from a perspective other than their domain inside health care. Students also visit the airport to review and interview how special services are coordinated to facilitate accommodation for physically challenged medical travelers.

For more information or to invite Dr. Todd to your next medical tourism event, please contact: Francesca Glenn, MHA, Corporate Communications for Mercury Healthcare International at +1.303.800.6451