| Title |
Inbound medical tourism to Barbados: a qualitative examination of local lawyers’ prospective legal and regulatory concerns
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
BMC Health Services Research, July 2015
|
| DOI | 10.1186/s12913-015-0948-3 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Valorie A. Crooks, I. Glenn Cohen, Krystyna Adams, Rebecca Whitmore, Jeffrey Morgan |
| Abstract |
Enabled by globalizing processes such as trade liberalization, medical tourism is a practice that involves patients' intentional travel to privately obtain medical care in another country. Empirical legal research on this issue is limited and seldom based on the perspectives of destination countries receiving medical tourists. We consulted with diverse lawyers from across Barbados to explore their views on the prospective legal and regulatory implications of the developing medical tourism industry in the country. We held a focus group in February 2014 in Barbados with lawyers from across the country. Nine lawyers with diverse legal backgrounds participated. Focus group moderators summarized the study objective and engaged participants in identifying the local implications of medical tourism and the anticipated legal and regulatory concerns. The focus group was transcribed verbatim and analyzed thematically. Five dominant legal and regulatory themes were identified through analysis: (1) liability; (2) immigration law; (3) physician licensing; (4) corporate ownership; and (5) reputational protection. Two predominant legal and ethical concerns associated with medical tourism in Barbados were raised by participants and are reflected in the literature: the ability of medical tourists to recover medical malpractice for adverse events; and the effects of medical tourism on access to health care in the destination country. However, the participants also identified several topics that have received much less attention in the legal and ethical literature. Overall this analysis reveals that lawyers, at least in Barbados, have an important role to play in the medical tourism sector beyond litigation - particularly in transactional and gatekeeper capacities. It remains to be seen whether these findings are specific to the ecology of Barbados or can be extrapolated to the legal climate of other medical tourism destination countries. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 5 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Ireland | 1 | 20% |
| United States | 1 | 20% |
| Canada | 1 | 20% |
| Unknown | 2 | 40% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 4 | 80% |
| Scientists | 1 | 20% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 47 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| New Zealand | 1 | 2% |
| India | 1 | 2% |
| Portugal | 1 | 2% |
| Unknown | 44 | 94% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Bachelor | 5 | 11% |
| Professor | 4 | 9% |
| Researcher | 4 | 9% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 4 | 9% |
| Other | 4 | 9% |
| Other | 13 | 28% |
| Unknown | 13 | 28% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Social Sciences | 6 | 13% |
| Business, Management and Accounting | 6 | 13% |
| Nursing and Health Professions | 5 | 11% |
| Psychology | 4 | 9% |
| Medicine and Dentistry | 3 | 6% |
| Other | 6 | 13% |
| Unknown | 17 | 36% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 28 July 2015.
All research outputs
#6,795,218
of 22,818,766 outputs
Outputs from BMC Health Services Research
#3,292
of 7,637 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#78,434
of 263,394 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Health Services Research
#54
of 113 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,818,766 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 69th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 7,637 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.7. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 56% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 263,394 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 69% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 113 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 52% of its contemporaries.