Technology in medicine drives health tourism

• In 2022, of the US$8,406 million generated by tourism, 15.7% came from travellers undergoing surgical procedures.

By Joan Sebastian Vallejo

Santo Domingo, November 2023-. Diversifying the Dominican Republic’s tourism offering is essential to boosting one of the pillars of the national economy. From retirement, business and shopping tourism to health-related visits, the results of these options are reflected in the statistics. In 2022, revenue from the hotel and restaurant industry totalled some US$8,406.5 million, according to Central Bank (BC) data.

The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) said local travel and tourism grew by 26% compared with the previous year to more than US$16,700 million, accounting for 15% of the Dominican economy. By the end of 2023, its total contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) will exceed US$17,700 million, it added.

By the end of this year, the national tourism sector is also projected to reach 850,900 jobs. To achieve this, one offering that looks increasingly attractive is health tourism, which contributed US$1,321 million in 2022.

Care for international patients in the country is mainly based in private hospitals with cutting-edge technology, plastic surgery clinics and dental practices, some of them internationally accredited.

“The key is to get patients to leave their own environment, which often has good hospitals, and come to the country. To do that, we must first offer a safe place and, second – and this is something where the Dominican Republic stands out – the price, even with the latest technology,” Dr. Héctor Sánchez Navarro told El Dinero. He is director of the Bariatric and Metabolic Institute (Meta Integra) at Hospital Metropolitano de Santiago (HOMS).

As detailed in the “Second Health and Wellness Tourism Study”, services for local health tourism are mainly offered in the south-east, specifically in Santo Domingo, Punta Cana and La Romana, and in the north, in Santiago and Puerto Plata.

Technology at a low price

“The economic factor is very important. If we offered everything we have at Boston prices, it wouldn’t be good business. We need to have the same product and technological advances, but more attractive,” added Sánchez Navarro.

This is where telemedicine comes in. Although Fedor Vidal, CEO of Arium Salud Digital, believes it has been misunderstood or misinterpreted, thanks to this technology “there is no need to have (appointments or consultations) in person”. Even so, he makes clear that not everything can be done with telemedicine, saying “it is a very powerful tool, for example, for triage before a patient comes to the country”.

Triage means checking or validating that a patient is suitable for a specific procedure in a country before they travel. Even so, he stresses that telemedicine is very broad.

“We have teleconsultation, telemetry, telediagnosis and second opinions – there’s a whole world within that framework,” he explained. That is why he stresses that it should be used in a very focused way for certain processes. In the United States, during the pandemic, it went from around 3,000,000 telemedicine consultations to more than 225,000,000.

“Of course, that was related to the health crisis, but it has normalised, and right now 22% of primary interactions take place via telemedicine and are no longer done in person,” he said.

The Dominican Republic is still taking its first steps. He says some fields have begun to use it, such as psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists. For Vidal, teleconsultation is very cost-effective for several reasons. First, he cites the low investment, which he described as minimal, but with an “extremely important” economic impact for clinics or doctors.

The reasons include opening up new and more consultations, time management and absenteeism. “Telemedicine removes or lowers the barrier of no-shows. If you have a patient who doesn’t turn up for an appointment, (thanks to telemedicine) you save money because you don’t have to travel.”

It is expected that, if the country’s health tourism sector is strengthened, by 2028 it would receive around 500,000 international patients, a 47% increase on 2022, and thereafter would grow by 30% every 5 years to become a competitive destination.

According to the study, on that projection, more than 1 million international patients could be treated by 2043. The report also says that if 70% of international patients travel with a companion, the impact on visitor numbers would be equivalent to 1.7 million tourists from this segment.

Hospitals and hotels

Something else that adds to the local offering is what Sánchez Navarro described as a “distinctive experience”. This means a patient can come for oral, cosmetic or obesity surgery or liposculpture, and also have somewhere pleasant to recover.

In this sense, hospitals with hotels nearby offer a kind of health tourism package.

“We are a country driven by tourism, which is an extremely important part of its economy. That’s why we have a hotel next to our hospital; it says a lot about the synergy between offering a good healthcare product and the holiday hotel side,” he said.

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