Denver International Health Expert To Speak At HOTELS BRIDGING HEALTHCARE (H2H) in Bad Ragaz, Switz

April 9, 2012 - PRLog -- Registration is now open for Hotels Bridging Healthcare (H2H), a conference on hotel, wellness and medical tourism entrepreneurship designed to provide an overview of medical tourism today and the future and concept of H2H with wellness spas. www.lerner.udel.edu/hrim/h2hconference

Organized by co-chairs Drs. Ali Poorani and Frederick DeMicco of the Department of Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management at the University of Delaware, the conference will focus on the development, operation and branding of medical tourism services developed between hotels, resorts and medical facilities.

The conference will be held Saturday, June 16, through Tuesday, June 19, 2012 at the Grand Resort Bad Ragaz Wellbeing and Medical Health Center in Switzerland. Participants can register online at:  https://primus.nss.udel.edu/casforms/hrim/h2h/

Denver's own international healthcare expert, author, and executive thought leader 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 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 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 infrastructure than most physician-hospital organizations in America.

Todd recently brought a group 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 toured the Grand Hyatt Downtown Denver and interviewed executive staff in Food and Beverage, Security and Housekeeping to understand the logistics from a perspective other than their domain inside health care. Students were able to visit the Biotech cluster an Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora.

This marks the third class of students Todd has assembled in Denver at the Healthcare Business Institute, a nonprofit educational foundation that offers classes to healthcare and related industry professionals.  

Todd recently authored two books, The Medical Tourism Facilitator's Handbook, and The Handbook of Medical Tourism Program Development, both published by Productivity Press, in New York. The former focuses 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).

Other agenda items include panel presentations and discussions on the operational model of Bad Ragaz, the branding of cities and towns for medical tourism, financial and investment issues, potential infrastructure and legal issues and the impact on doctor/patient communication.

Max Koppel, M.D., clinical associate professor at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, has collaborated with Poorani and DeMicco and will preside as the H2H conference medical advisor. According to Koppel, “the conference will advance the international availability of highest quality care with fewer bureaucratic barriers.”  “The conference will also focus on patient dignity, safety and expanded freedom of choice through the hospitality concept,” said Koppel.

The conference is sponsored by Hospitality Associates for Research and Training (HART); the University of Delaware; the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics; the Department of Hotel, Restaurant and Institution Management; and the College of Health Sciences.

For more information, please contact:  Dr. Fred DeMicco; fdemicco@udel.edu or Dr. Ali Poorani; poorani@udel.edu

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The largest globally integrated health delivery system available for self-funded employer sponsored health and wellness benefits for USA, expatriate and traveling employees.