The Globalization of Health Services: The Impact of Global Medical Travel in India, Brazil and Mexico

Health administration educators in the U.S. have traditionally focused their teaching on domestic healthcare delivery, and this was done for good reason. Healthcare has always been among the most local of all industries: you visit your local doctor and when you need extra care you go to your local hospital. Historically, most actors in the healthcare value chain – employers, insurers, payers, providers, suppliers, and the government – have been local, regional, or at the most removed, national (Starr, 1982). But in fact, many facets of the healthcare value chain have started to globalize, paralleling to some extent the growing globalization of most other industries.