Abstract
Purpose. Medical tourism is recently becoming a new industry with great growth potential. The South Korean government is shifting medical tourism from simple cultural tourism to a high value-added industry with a new paradigm. Methods. The government has been providing positive support and marketing policies since the introduction of the article concerning foreign patient attraction to the medical law in 2009, and various types of medical institutions around the country has participated actively in medical tourism by themselves or in cooperation of government bodies and made increasingly greater performance. Results. This study obtained the following results. The medical institutions in Korea have been making efforts to see more development and profitability in diverse ways, including medical tourism for foreign patients and the advance of the Korean medical institutions into foreign markets. However, many local governing bodies and medical institutions participating in medical tourism around the country have primarily focused on examination and treatment on the basis of foreign patients' visit to South Korea and rarely built a medical network with other countries directly for medical tourism. This study presents a case of building a local medical network and a network for international medical tourism successfully on the basis of the local medical association, CMP, which has been formed naturally in Busan. The success factors for CMP included 1) enthusiasm of the official in charge; 2) the medical level, the service level, and open-mindedness of participant medical institutions; 3) cost efficiency due to executive office management with no costs, no conflicts, and constant partnership; 4) security of non-competitive expertise for participants; 5) local factors of CMP; 6) participation of good agencies; 7) reinforcement of participation networks; and 8) post facto management and local doctor management. Conclusions. Its positive effects included patient introduction and greater profitability on an internal basis as well as construction of the collaboration system with the institutions related to medical tourism and confidence. However, there are some limitations: it is still difficult to predict performance due to the short period of their activities, and it is necessary to continue to observe their constant activities since a single medical association was involved.
