Medical issues in flight and updating the emergency medical kit.

Airline travel is more affordable than ever and likely safer than ever too. Within half a day, a passenger can be on the other side of the world. However, medical care in-flight has been an issue for those with medical conditions and for those who fall sick during a journey.

Involvement abroad of U.S. academic health centers and major teaching hospitals: the developing landscape.

Purpose: To compile information about major offshore clinical, education, and research programs and operations of U.S. academic health centers (AHCs) and major teaching hospitals, and to describe how these offshore activities relate to each institution's underlying mission and to the organizational mechanisms that link the activities to the organization's core mission while protecting the organization from potential risks.

Health impact assessment and short-term medical missions: a methods study to evaluate quality of care.

Background: Short-term medical missions (STMMs) are a well-established means of providing health care to the developing world. Despite over 250 million dollars and thousands of volunteer hours dedicated to STMMs, there is a lack of standardized evaluation to assess patient safety, quality control, and mission impact. The objective of this project is to design and implement an assessment tool that defines objective parameters of quality of care as identified by STMMs.

Flat medicine? Exploring trends in the globalization of health care.

Trailing nearly every other industry, health care is finally globalizing. Highly trained and experienced expatriate health care professionals are returning to their home countries from training in the West or are staying home to work in newly developed corporate health care delivery systems that can compete quite favorably with less-than-perfect providers in Europe and North America. In turn, these health care systems are attracting patients from around the world who are interested in exploring high-quality, lower-cost health care alternatives.