Abstract
Background: Currently medical tourism has become a topic increasingly discussed among the Japanese government officials, medical professionals, travel agencies and media reports. The purpose of this paper is to review the effects of medical tourism on healthcare services in destination countries, where medical tourism is already been done, and to discuss some issues that Japan will face as a medical tourism provider by taking into account current Japanese situations. Method: Literature research through international and national databases of academic articles. In addition, information about the recent developments regarding medical tourism in Japan was collected through the websites of the government and newspaper articles. Results: Three aspects of the effects of medical tourism on healthcare services in destination countries were extracted from the reviewed sources: improvement of the national healthcare system brought about by the profit gained though medical tourism, encouragement of national medical professionals both in quantity and quality, and international standardization of healthcare services. The followings were found as the current characteristics of medical tourism in Japan: 1) the government and local government, and some of the medical community have taken action on the preparation for accepting medical tourists, 2) it is expected that Japanese medical community will have things to offer in their strong areas such as health checkups or medical examinations using abundant medical equipment, and 3) the local cities rather than the metropolitan areas are eager to launch medical tourism. Conclusions: Arranging policies about medical tourism in order not to affect the healthcare access for domestic patients and to prevent generating healthcare inequity in destination countries, and the change of the physician-patient relationship in cases where medical tourism exacerbates a profit-seeking aspect of the healthcare, are important issues to be considered when medical tourism is implemented in Japan.
