GYEONGGI-DO

Projects for the Strengthening of Medical Institution Infrastructure Including the Training of Medical Tour Coordinators for Attracting Foreign Patients to Gyeonggi Province

 

Gyeonggi Province is the largest local government in Korea with about 13,940,000 residents, a quarter of the total population of Korea, and is at the center of the economy, tourism, culture, and medicine in the country. It also has abundant and excellent medical resources in line with its regional scale, and in particular, the total number of medical institutions in the province is 15,111, ranking the province second overall in the country. Indeed, renowned medical institutions, such as university hospital-level general hospitals, hospitals, clinics, and special hospitals, are concentrated in Gyeonggi province.

 

 

Thanks to its superb medical infrastructure, many foreigners are visiting Gyeonggi Province for the treatment of diseases. Since 2009 at the time when a legal basis for attracting foreign patients was established, the cumulative number of foreign patients visiting Gyeonggi Province has reached 419,029, and in 2021 alone, about 25,000 foreigners came to this province to undergo medical treatment.

 

About 150 medical institutions among those located in Gyeonggi province have been registered as a medical institution for attracting foreign patients, and the institutions have secured a variety of facilities and equipment for the stay and treatment of foreign patients.

 

 

What matters most in providing medical services for foreigners is the role of a medical tour coordinator. A medical tour coordinator is a profession that involves tasks such as rendering interpretations services between healthcare providers and foreign patients who intend to receive medical examinations and treatment in Korea and providing foreign patients with various convenient services in relation to the use of hospitals and the necessary procedures to be undergone during the period of medical tourism.

 

In Gyeonggi Province, a large number of medical tour coordinators are serving as liaison contacts and mediators between foreign patients and hospitals. Accordingly, the Province has worked to train highly qualified medical tour coordinators in order to meet the increasing demand for medical tourism in the province.

 

In 2022, however, the COVID 19 Pandemic that swept across the globe substantially limited the activities of medical tour coordinators who otherwise would have been very active in the growing field of medical tourism. Gyeonggi Province hosted the ‘2022 Workshop for the Strengthening of the Abilities of Medical Tour Coordinators’ to revitalize the stagnant industry.

 

 

This event invited 46 attendees including medical tour coordinators using Russian, Mongolian, Vietnamese or Chinese languages who are engaged in connecting foreign patients with domestic hospitals and helping their companions tour the city during their stay.

 

This event featured a presentation on the topic entitled ‘Changes in the Domestic Medical Tour Market and Trends related to Global Medical Tour Markets in a Post-Covid 19 Era,’ an exchange opportunity for collaboration between medical institutions and medical tour coordinators, and the sharing of on-site experiences from six medical tour coordinators.

 

Furthermore, Gyeonggi Province carried out manpower training programs for ‘medical tour coordinators’ targeting foreigners who want to find a job in this field for five days from October 31 to November 4, 2022.

 

This training program was aimed at providing opportunities to gain job experience for job seekers living in the province who intend to start their career as medical tour coordinators and training professional medical tour coordinators by teaching them about the fundamental knowledge and techniques, etc. necessary for the job.

 

A total of 17 trainees who used multiple national languages including Russian, Vietnamese, and Chinese attended the courses related to theory and practice regarding the overall medical tour market and received an introduction to the profession of a medical tour coordinator, which included ▲ an understanding of the global healthcare market and culture, ▲ the strengthening of the capacity for online promotion and marketing, ▲ on-site training at medical institutions, and ▲ foreign patient response training.

 

Such training programs and events are expected to have positive effects on the revitalization of the medical tour industry, such as promoting the profession to the general public interested in the field of medical tour coordination and fortifying the foundation for attracting foreign patients to Gyeonggi province through collaboration with medical institutions in the Province.

 

 

This year, Gyeonggi Province is also planning to actively conduct various infrastructure projects including the training of medical tour coordinators so that high-quality medical services are available for foreign patients who visit the Province.