Not only patients, health care organisations all over the world also involve physicians, nurses, pharmacists and other health care professionals collaborating multinationally with one another to improve health care.

A knol by Mr. Emerson Smith report some cases which very well described what’s going on in International health care today.

One thing he mention that I feel important is that hospitals and health care providers today are not competing with their local or regional competitors in winning patients – they have to compete health care providers from all over the world.

Mr. Emerson stated in his knol that in 2010, according to Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, there will be approximately $68 billion of health care departing the US for foreign health care providers.

The competition is stiff – hospitals today offer top-notch health care services at a very affordable cost, with focus on global markets. And it’s not something large hospitals and health care providers can ‘monopoly’ anymore – As an example, a small hospital – Galichia Heart Hospital in Wichita, Kansas, is targeting Canadian and British markets, offering coronary by-pass for patients without complications for a flat fee of $10,000. That is very affordable for such big operation.

The health care is so global today, in such a way that in recognising the increase of patients leaving the US, The American Medical Association approved its Guidelines on Medical Tourism in June 2008. Singapore has done this even before the US did – putting health care right in the middle of its tourism campaign.

Mr. Emerson explained about medical tourism as follow.

Medical tourism is, in essence, tourism that main purpose is not for vacationing, but to get the best health care a ‘tourist’ can – all in all, in a facility that threat them like royalty and for a reasonable cost.

He also noted that we should call it global medicine.

For more case studies and explanation on global health care issues, I suggest you to visit the knol.