Dr Jason Yap: Helping to grow the medical travel pie

Dr Jason Yap, Director of Healthcare Services with the STB, talks about the need to grow the pie for everyone and the launch of a new association that will help raise standards.

In many ways, Dr Jason CH Yap is the ideal candidate to promote medical travel to Singapore. His Penang-born mother travelled to the city state to give birth to him 40-something years ago "so I am the product of medical travel", he says.

Calling himself a "medical career maverick", Dr Yap, who is a public health physician by training, joined the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) as Director of Healthcare Services about 18 months ago. His last job was as IT Director for the National HealthCare Group and prior to that, he was with the Ministry of Health.

His mission at the STB: To promote international medical travel to Singapore.

"The reasons my mother came to Singapore to have me are still the same as they were back then - Singapore is one of the best places in terms of quality medical care and in fact, the standards are too high for its population size.

"That's why we have to bring in international visitors so that we can have the very best treatment and facilities for our Singapore patients."

Medical travel is a growing market globally and Singapore is not alone in trying to promote this high-yield segment. Last year, Singapore welcomed 374,000 medical travellers.

Globalisation, the driver

While medical travel is by no means new, people have been travelling for medical treatment for a long time, Dr Yap said, adding that medicine, because of its nature, is one of the last industries to be influenced by globalisation.

"It makes sense. When you are sick, you prefer not to travel, you know your own doctors, you feel more comfortable at home. But it's starting to change. People are now willing to travel if they know of specialised treatments they may not be able to get at home or it's more cost-effective or if they can combine elective surgery (cosmetic surgery) with a vacation," said Dr Yap.

The medical travel market is divided into two main segments - commoditised surgery such as hip replacement or breast implants - and specialised treatments for critical illnesses.

While other destinations are better known for the former, Dr Yap said Singapore has a broader range of medical treatments. "We have the pretty standard stuff such as medical check-ups to leading edge work such as steam cell transplants, liver transplants and cancer treatments."

According to Dr Yap, SingaporeMedicine has three main objectives:

• To build awareness of Singapore as a destination for healthcare.
• To focus on key areas such as heart, cancer, neurology, eye and more cutting edge surgery.
• To work at a higher level to develop the whole medical travel industry for everyone in the world.

Getting organised: The International Medical Travel Association

The third objective was the main driver behind the staging of the first International Medical Travel Conference (IMTC) held in Singapore in December.

It was the first educational conference in the field globally, said Dr Yap and SingaporeMedicine was one of the main supporters of the event organised by Avail Corporation.

"What we want to do is try and help everyone get organized, so that we can all work together to grow the pie," he added.

The conference, which drew more than 200 delegates from 20 countries including Zimbabwe, India, Dubai, Australia and the USA, was aimed at sharing best practices and highlighting difficult issues facing the industry as well as to facilitate networking and business development.

Beyond the discussions, an agreement was also reached at the event to form the International Medical Travel Association (IMTA). A committee of volunteers is currently crafting the constitution and it is hoped the IMTA will be ready for launch in the first quarter of 2007.

"The industry will take a few years to consolidate and one way to kick start it is through an association that can grow the industry in stages - first, through networking and business development, then by sharing of best practices, followed by accreditation based on standards and, later, self-regulation," said Dr Yap.

Asked if the growing spotlight on medical travel was healthy given that it could lure unscrupulous operators out to make a quick buck, Dr Yap said: "By setting up an association and holding a conference, we are trying to get a little more organised and set minimum standards so that if anyone wants to jump onto the bandwagon, it will be a higher bandwagon.

"We will raise the overall quality of the industry and things will only get better. Look at it this way. Globalisation is coming to medicine, so patient travel is going to happen anyway. What we can do is help everyone to do it better and do it right."