Omer A Ahmed
American Hospital Dubai, UAE
Biography
Mr. Stefano Urbani is a Management Engineer, with MBA in MIP, Politecnico di Milano. He studied Global Business Management in Boston College and Negotiation in Audencia Business School. Founder of the Medical Tourism Company “TURISMO MEDICO ITALIA (TMI)”. Founded in the year 2013, TMI is the first-mover Medical Tourism Company in the Italian region, currently working in outbound flow, developing inbound flow in according of a strategic consultancy program to italian healthcare private facilities.
During these years, Mr. Stefano Urbani had the opportunity to participate in different medical tourism events and fairs in Europe, Arab Countries, Asia and America, also as Speaker. Mr. Stefano Urbani strongly believes that the future of the health system will be global and, nowadays, the medical tourism business is closely related with digital media marketing business and each Players has to work about its reputation, process management quality and open-mind approach to be competitive in this sector.
For these reasons, TMI works with 3 integrated line of business: Facilitator, Marketing and tailor-made consultancy. Following this way, TMI is building structural barriers of internal competition and long-term relationship Facilitator/Provider in a Win2Win strategy. Recently, Mr. Urbani is very much engaged on establishing of the network with Medical Tourism Providers, over the World, including italian region.
Abstract
The Medical Tourism is a phenomenon quickly spreading all around the world: thanks to the new communication technologies and the development of the transportation systems, a lot of people are receiving their medical treatments abroad (because of the lower cost, the unavailability of that treatment in their home country or to receive it with the best quality). This phenomenon is slowly getting a foothold also in Italy. This work is investigating the reasons that are pushing the Lombard medical providers to enter the Medical Tourism market and the possible strategies to do it in the best way. The research is based on two new models (one for the reasons to enter that market and the other one for the strategies deployable) and on a survey designed to verify the assumptions made in the models. The survey received 21 answers and from the analyses conducted I came to the conclusion that the internal motivations, more than the external ones, are determinant in choosing to enter the Medical Tourism market. Using the framework of the second model and the results of the survey I propose 10 strategies to enter that market in the best way, dividing these approaches according to the size and the market sector targeted by the medical provider. In conclusion the analyses conducted in this work can be a baseline for further studies regarding the overall Italian situation, also from the perspective of the local customers, in order to have a complete picture of the phenomenon in Italy.