Medical Travel Today

THIS WEEK IN MEDICAL TRAVEL TODAY
Volume 5, Issue 16
by Amanda Haar, Editor

A recent article in the huffingtonpost.com on plastic surgery (see INDUSTRY NEWS) includes this quote: "But buyers beware: Plastic surgery tourism is a reflection of both the best and worst of our global society." The article suggests that for the majority of consumers, cost is still the primary driver in the decision to travel abroad for care. However, the recent U.S. Survey of Health Care Consumers from Deloitte actually ranks out-of-pocket cost as the third-most important criteria, behind superior quality of care and availability of doctors and hospitals for treatment needed, in the decision to travel outside the country for care. Cost falls to fifth in the same survey if most or all is paid for by another source.

Personally, I find this bit of information very encouraging. It elevates medical travel from a mere affordable option to a truly informed and desirable option. But as the huffingtonpost.com article points out, the perception of the industry is lagging behind the reality.

While of positive outcomes, research and data, and the work of quality minded organizations (such as Press Ganey Associates featured in this week's first SPOTLIGHT), will help turn perception of the press and consumers, it's up to each of us to make sure that we always open discussions and elevator speeches about the industry with quality first.

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Congrats to Dr. Sajid Ahmed, M.D., MHA, CPHQ
Accreditation Canada International

Winner of a a free copy of Patients Beyond Borders, Second Edition.

To enter to win your own copy, simply email editor@medicaltraveltoday.com subject line: book drawing

See box to right for more information.

NT Media Announces Proposed Name Change to Global Health Voyager, Inc. in Connection With International Medical Tourism Activities

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – August 1, 2011 – NT Media Corp. of California, Inc.(OTCBB: NTMI) (the "Company") today announced that it has begun the process of changing its name to "Global Health Voyager, Inc." in connection with its transition to becoming a full-service, web-based, medical tourism facilitator. The Company anticipates that the name change will become effective on or about August 10, 2011. The Company will obtain a new stock symbol in connection with the name change. The Company will issue further updates as the effective date for the name change approaches.

“The democratization of healthcare has established standardized evaluation methods and quantifiable benchmarks for international patient care, making the timing of this business transition very opportune for the Company and its shareholders,” says Ali Moussavi, President and CEO of the Company. The Company has already established agreements with many hospitals in destinations worldwide, all with respected international accreditation, including Joint Commission International (JCI). “Well-regarded accreditation processes have more Americans, Canadians, and multinationals reaching out with confidence to physicians and facilities beyond their domestic borders to access more affordable, innovative, quality treatments.”

The Company's medical tourism platform addresses specific market needs, providing each segment with access to services that are tailored to reflect high quality standards and attention to safety:

Business-to-Business: Self-insured employers, health plans, brokers and other intermediaries. With legislative reform expected to drive up healthcare costs, more employers are choosing to self-insure their health benefits. Self-insured employers of all sizes are discovering the significant cost savings and comparable quality and safety of medical travel.
Uninsured and Underinsured Individuals: Estimates by the Commonwealth Fund show that 52 million Americans were uninsured in 2010. The Gallup Report 2010 cites Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Utah, and Florida as states with the highest numbers of uninsured.
High Net-Worth Individuals: Affluent patients desire access to top-tier providers and advanced medical technologies including stem cell treatments; anti-aging and rejuvenation procedures; in-vitro fertilization; wellness spas; and rehabilitation programs for addictive behaviors.

“Traveling abroad for medical procedures averages nearly 73 percent less cost than for the same treatment in the United States,” says Moussavi. “In its goal to become a premier international healthcare service provider, the Company will continue to carefully select hospitals and providers that are often largely staffed by Western-trained, board-certified physicians.”

About NT Media Corp. of California, Inc.

NT Media Corp. of California, Inc.(OTCBB: NTMI) is a U.S.-based full-service medical tourism facilitator. It extends its vast worldwide network of highly accredited facilities and providers to patients seeking healthcare, surgical, dental, and wellness procedures. The Company is a one-stop medical tourism resource, providing consumers, employers, payers and other intermediaries the ability to choose and access information about a wide array of destinations, hospitals, procedures and services from one convenient location. Through established relationships with international providers, the Company has already done the groundwork to verify the accreditation and experience of the provider organizations. Visit www.globalhealthvoyager.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this news release may constitute "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievement expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements to differ.

SPOTLIGHT: PART I: Karol Wicker and Rainer Hilgenfeld, Press Ganey Associates, Inc.

Publisher’s Note: In 2010, Press Ganey acquired the International Quality Indicator Project® (IQIP), which assists healthcare organizations in identifying opportunities for improvement in patient care. Nearly 350 healthcare organizations in 17 countries use IQIP tools to collect, analyze and compare clinical and administrative healthcare data. For more information, please view the informational brochure (PDF file). A list of available Acute, Psychiatric, Long-Term, and Home-Care measures can be found here.

Medical Travel Today (MTT): Please share with our readers your backgrounds and why Press Ganey is interested in this market segment.

Karol Wicker (KW): I’ve been with the International Quality Indicator Project (IQIP) for about 15 years. It was originally part of the Maryland Hospital Association and last year it was acquired by Press Ganey.

First, we think Press Ganey’s full range of healthcare performance measurement and improvement solutions are relevant to the international market, not just the clinical performance measures traditionally offered by IQIP.

Press Ganey has been approached by healthcare organizations outside the U.S. that want to view, analyze and interpret performance in the areas of clinical performance and patient satisfaction, so there is clearly interest in more sophisticated products and services.

Second, our overarching objective is really in helping hospitals and all healthcare providers to become high performers, whether they are located inside or outside the United States. We believe much may be gained by comparing performance and fostering collaboration beyond country boundaries. Practices and techniques adopted by practitioners in Thailand, for example, may have relevance to providers in Austria and/or the United States, and vice versa. Our tools and solutions are available at http://www.pressganey.com/ourSolutions.aspx.

Rainer Hilgenfeld (RH): I joined IQIP full-time about three years ago when I became the International Coordinator, and have been working in healthcare consulting in Germany and throughout Europe for the last 10 years. I am an internist by training and worked previously in clinical medicine for another 10 years.

International hospitals that now have this benchmarking opportunity — not only regarding medical outcomes, but also for patient satisfaction — are really an assessment of patients’ experience of care

MTT: Maybe we could step back a minute and could you explain the connection between IQIP and Press Ganey?

RH: Sure. As Karol said, IQIP belonged to the Maryland Hospital Association until August of last year. Now, why would a U.S. State Hospital Association own an international project that includes hospitals in 17 countries? It’s a natural fit that the IQIP came to Press Ganey, which about a year ago acquired IQIP.

It was a very good decision since Press Ganey is a recognized market leader in the United States regarding patient satisfaction and hospital performance measurement and improvement services. However, until then they did not have much of a presence outside the country.
Therefore, there are a lot of synergies among IQIP and other products and services that Press Ganey offers.

MTT: As we look at the international market for hospitals, in terms of selling your services or offering your services, will you be targeting any particular countries or class of hospitals?

RH: We are active in 17 countries including the United States. We are also active in Europe, Latin America and in Asia.

We are likely to target more Asian hospitals. and providers in any country that offers a selection up to Western healthcare standards and that are interested in comparing clinical outcomes to other hospitals.

While we usually prefer to work with local partners in the respective countries, in the past we have also accepted individual hospitals when they fulfilled these criteria.

MTT: So, there would be a little more focus on Asia compared to the United States?

RH: Yes. We are relocating our IQIP international office from Germany to Singapore.

In Europe, we found that many of the larger countries have a mandatory reporting system. Hospitals in these countries at least -- at the moment -- are not very open to additional systems that pose another layer to what they already are required to do.
Conversely, what we found in Asia is that there are many hospitals positioned to attract medical tourists. They all value quality over the quantity of care, and seek to offer services that patients from the United States or Europe would expect. They are looking for ways to benchmark themselves to Western hospitals.

KW: Yes – IQIP staff are also in Baltimore, Maryland. Press Ganey’s main headquarters are located in South Bend, Ind..

MTT: Because you’re now involved in medical travel, what is your vision for the industry? What will be the role of Press Ganey in shaping the industry or participating in its development?

RH: The medical tourist industry will grow tremendously in the next several years because patients are more mobile and healthcare has become a global industry.

Everybody is moving all the time, so why wouldn’t patients go to Asia for an operation if they can enjoy the same quality provided in the United States or in Europe, but at lower cost?

The only difference is that surgeries and procedures usually cost half of what they would at home. I think those are wonderful advantages.

I also see patients from developing or transitional countries eager to access more advanced healthcare.

For example, just a month ago I was in a hospital in Bangkok participating in IQIP. Nearly half of its patients are traveling there from abroad, with many coming from the Middle East, Africa, or from other countries in Asia.

There’s movement outside the United States. Medical tourism, as you know, is very much alive and booming already -- and I can see this increasing more in the next few years.

KW: As the medical travel industry grows, U.S. hospitals are going to feel a lot more pressure from the international hospitals.

The U.S. hospitals will start competing more aggressively to keep American citizens home. I also believe international hospitals will want to meet certain quality standards, but they’ll also need to be able to publically report on those so that medical tourists may make informed decisions on where they want travel for care.

MTT: So, this is a way for the international hospitals, so to speak, to step up to the bar.

RH: That’s 350 including the United States. We have the U.S. Quality Indicator Project, so altogether we have about 350.

About Karol Wicker
Ms. Wicker has more than 17 years experience in the health information and data analysis industry supporting quality improvement initiatives to improve patient care processes and reduce costs.

Karol has architected and managed the processing, interpretation and presentation of aggregate and patient-level clinical data for hospital improvement initiatives, ensured validity and reliability of clinical data as well as monitored hospital performance at an individual and aggregate level. She has also provided guidance and direction to information technology staff to implement tools supporting data gathering, analyses and data presentation..

Ms. Wicker has co-authored five research articles published in the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice and Quality and Safety in Health Care. She has also presented at Academy Health’s Annual Research Meeting, the American Public Health Association’s Annual Meeting and Exposition, and the Maryland Patient Safety Center’s Annual Conference.

Karol received two Bachelor of Science degrees with honors from Goucher College and her Master of Health Science with honors in international health and population policy from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. She also holds Six Sigma Green Belt certification.

About Rainer Hilgenfeld
Since 2008, Rainer Hilgenfeld has been international coordinator of the International Quality Indicator Project, a product of Press Ganey Associates, Inc., where he is responsible for training and coordinating hospitals and healthcare facilities outside the United States that participate in the International Quality Indicator Project (www.internationalqip.com).

He is intricately familiar with clinical performance measurement, having introduced and supported the International Quality Indicator Project in China, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and Switzerland in his previous position as director of the Healthcare Quality Division at epos Beratungsgesellschaft, a healthcare consulting firm belonging to the EPOS Group, which is based near Frankfurt, Germany.

Dr. Hilgenfeld has extensive experience assessing and preparing hospitals for accreditation. He has prepared numerous hospitals in Austria, Germany and Italy for accreditation by Joint Commission International and has assessed tertiary care centers in Pakistan as an expert for the World Health Organization. He is also a certified Trainer for the German accreditation system KTQ as well as an EFQM Assessor (European Foundation for Quality Management).

Dr. Hilgenfeld is a board-certified internist with 10 years of clinical experience. He holds a doctorate and an M.D. from the Free University of Berlin and a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md.

Recognized as a leader in performance improvement for 25 years, Press Ganey partners with more than 10,000 healthcare organizations to create and sustain high-performing organizations and, ultimately, improve the overall healthcare experience. The company offers a comprehensive portfolio of solutions to help clients operate efficiently, improve quality, increase market share and optimize reimbursement. Press Ganey works with clients from across the continuum of care – hospitals, medical practices, home care agencies and other providers – including 50 percent of all U.S. hospitals. For more information, visit www.pressganey.com