Prospect of Medical Tourism in the State of Odisha: An Analytical Report from the Selected Private Tertiary Care Hospitals

Globalization and technological advancements has enabled health care sector worldwide to provide its services at an affordable cost thereby promoting medical tourism. Developing countries including India are also in the race to attract the people from other parts of the world to avail the health care services in the native land.

This study is an attempt has to assess the ground realities of existing health care services in tertiary care hospitals in Odisha, to find out deficits and suggest corrective measures to facilitate medical tourism in the state.

Random sampling was done from three private tertiary care teaching hospitals. Opinions of the patients were captured in the form of questionnaire and assessed using SERVQUAL scale to find the gap between their expectations and perceptions. Likert scale was used to record the responses regarding the reason of their choice of hospitals, pricing of health services and attitudinal loyalty.

The quality of the services was the major deciding factor while cost was the least in choosing any particular hospital. The gap between expectation and perception was highest for empathy of health care providers. Around half of the respondents were satisfied with the health care services provided. Most respondents had positive attitudinal loyalty towards the hospitals.

Ample scope of medical tourism exists in Odisha, provided continuous assessment of service qualities and necessary corrective measures are taken to reduce the gap between customer expectations and perceptions.