Medical Tourism: Emerging Strategies in the Italian region

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 Italian 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.