Medical Tourism OR One More Outsourcing??

The views expressed in this article are purely mine & any resemblance to any other views expressed any where else is purely coincidental.

The word ‘Outsourcing’ has been one of the most (ab) used word through out the world in the last 5 years or so….it has been one of the most common & recycled topics of discussion, be it in some of the talk shows on TV or be it in some of the panel discussions / group discussions for B-school or job interviews. In fact, I had to face the same topic in my first job interview during the Group Discussion stage, fortunately, being a regular reader of current affairs , I was able to talk something on outsourcing that made some sense to the panelist & I got the job.

Today, in retrospect when I look back & try to think as to why outsourcing made so much business news & in a way created a divide between the countries where people were losing their jobs & the countries where all their jobs were outsourced. In fact, John Kerry made outsourcing as one of his prime selling points in the presidential polls against George Bush. Companies today are outsourcing activities that they believe is not within the domain of their core competence & to an extent non-value adding for its employees & shareholders. The outsourcing activities that are most commonly heard of are pertaining to recruitment , salary processing, inventory management or broadly speaking Vendor management services, maintenance, CRM & many other activities that are being outsourced even at the time of writing this article.

The one form of outsourcing that really fascinated me is ‘Medical Tourism’ which is gaining popularity across the globe & India is again vying to be one of the hot locales for this outsourcing activity which is also becoming an important source of revenue for the players in this industry. Medical Tourism involves the health care industry, where in the patient suffering from a particular disease can take a package tour & spend quality time in a place that is far away from his place, in the surroundings that will be most beneficial for the patient’s quick recovery under the watchful eyes of high caliber medical staff, it surely comes at a premium price. In India , the southern states of Tamil Nadu , Karnataka & Kerala have always been preferred destinations for most of the Indians with respect to medical care , now many foreigners are exploring the medical tourism route which serves two basic purposes ; quality medical care & costs that are a few times cheaper that in the countries of the western world.

India is surely becoming one of the fore runners in the Outsourcing business which in turn is definitely helping to generate employment opportunities & increase the disposable income of the Indian populace at large, but I think there is one class of activity that we might think of outsourcing to some other country - our political & social administration for the same twin reasons….its not our core competence & the main stakeholders i.e. we the people do not find any value addition happening in our daily lives in the current scenario , or… have we already outsourced the Prime Minister’s job ???