Georgia’s Perspectives in Medical Tourism – Challenges, Barriers in Healthcare Sector

Abstract

The global growth in the flow of patients and health professionals, as well as, capital funding and medical technology has given rise to broadly defined, rapidly growing, multi billion industry of medical tourism. Experts of the field forecast great perspectives in medical tourism for Georgia, since Georgia’s healthcare sector is indeed competitive in number of medical services. Objective of the conducted research was identification of barriers hindering medical tourism development and existing challenges in Georgia and elaboration of recommendations, accordingly. In line with the research goals, narrative review and qualitative study was performed; in total, 37 semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with major stakeholders of medical tourism industry, in the country. According to the research, major barriers and challenges were identified in the healthcare sector and on the system level, in Georgia. Consequently, recommendations were developed to expand medical tourism in the country. Moreover, these recommendations can be of use for other developing countries willing to become medical tourism destination.