Providing care to traveling patients requires a broader set of skills and knowledge. While providing care to patients, in general, requires core professional values, knowledge, and skills, medical travelers have unique needs and expectations that, when missed, may negatively impact the entire care journey. Understanding the needs of the medical traveler at various touchpoints of medical travel is essential for a seamless and wholesome patient care journey.
Global Healthcare Accreditation (GHA) launched the Certified Medical Travel Professional over a decade ago, and since that time it has become the go-to training and certification for professionals in the industry. The certification is an all-important program for industry stakeholders to understand the drivers of medical travel and the unique needs of medical travelers, which will empower them to provide the right solutions at each stage of the care journey.
For the post-pandemic pool of traveling patients or expats, one thing matters significantly - the patient experience. Beyond providing the required treatment services or undergoing the surgical treatment for which a patient seeks care in a destination, the overall experience from departure to discharge is a key component of the patient care journey. An unsatisfied patient is unlikely to reconsider a provider for their health needs and unlikely to recommend that provider to other potential medical travelers.
How are patients’ cultural uniqueness factored into their care? Was language a significant barrier to care for your patient? Did your patient receive poorer treatment due to a lack of understanding of their religious beliefs or cultural traditions? Were accommodation and transport logistics left to the last minute? Did your food services factor in your patient’s cultural preferences? How was your post-treatment recovery phase; was it more stressful for the patient? What infection control measures were in place at your facility?
Not all these questions necessarily impact the clinical treatment received, but on other key components of the care journey that also define the patient experience. The Certified Medical Travel Professional Program offers you an in-depth understanding of these nuances as well as how these components may impact not only patient experience but clinical outcomes and financial performance.
Essentially, the CMTP certification equips professionals with the knowledge and tools to meet the medical traveler at every point of their needs. The course is comprised of 12, on-demand training modules and about 250 continuing education videos to reposition you as a valuable steward of patient care in the industry.
The learning modules cut across many essential topics including medical travel business models, the various stages of the medical travel care continuum, effective medical travel facilitation, marketing, and brand management, risk mitigation strategies, payment systems and models, and global best practices in medical travel.
The CMTP course is an essential tool for all medical travel stakeholders, including healthcare management executives, healthcare professionals, medical travel facilitators, insurers, and human resources managers. In so far as you are involved in an aspect of the medical care journey, you need to be well equipped with the CMTP course and certification to effectively handle the needs of medical travel patients, and understand what it means to build a business model around trust and top-notch quality to attract more health payers.
Benefits of the course include better career opportunities and brand visibility, which expands your business network and clientele base. The higher level of knowledge and experience gathered from different modules of the course also repositions you to deliver top-line services to medical tourists.
Further, health payers trust medical travel programs and facilitators that demonstrate some commitment to learning and improvement via third-party certifications. Having the CMTP certification gives you a competitive edge in the industry, attracting health buyers and payers to your program.
Many graduates of the course have come back to give great reviews about the impact of the program on their personal goals and their medical travel businesses.
“We wanted to be the best “Medical Tourism Facilitator” to deliver excellent care and ensure the continuity of care for patients. We also needed to provide professional consultation services and personalized assistance for health buyers, and the program was our go-to resource,” said Preecha Panarak, Founder and CEO of the World Medical Tourism Alliance about applying for the certification course.
“I took this step to combine my experience with certification. Although we achieved GHA accreditation in Prince Sultan Cardiac Center before I acquire CMTP certification, CMTP helped me understand more about the medical tourism professional best practices and applications,” said Dr. Amr Fahmy, Director of Quality and Patients Safety Administration at Prince Sultan Cardiac Center.
“Professionally having a CMTP designation has provided me with all the essential information needed to build a successful business model for a medical tourism facilitator. Personally, it was an opportunity to get the scholarship and also to further my knowledge from a practitioner and industry perspective on the global business of medical tourism,” said Anita Medhekar, a researcher in applied economics as it relates to international trade, health, and tourism.
One of the key ways to restore trust and confidence in the medical tourism industry is demonstrating a commitment to quality and an outstanding patient care experience. Patients have many options to choose from and are increasingly taking a more proactive approach to healthcare delivery.
The medical travel patient experience starts with you. With the Certified Medical Travel Professional program, become a highly valuable and recognized expert in the industry, providing relevant and exceptional solutions for medical tourists at each touchpoint of the medical travel patient care journey.
