Framing and measuring international patient management.

Purpose: Hospitals need to determine if an international patient department is a necessity to communicate with and manage international patients.

Design/methodology/approach: A benchmarking instrument was created to assess the level of professionalism in managing international patients, including reviewing and validating processes by two university hospitals, professionals, and an expert panel.

Findings: First, the differences between the hospitals depended on the will of the hospital to engage in such activities.

Transnational health care: from a global terminology towards transnational health region development.

Within European cross-border health care, recent studies have identified several types of international patients. Within the Anglo-Saxon setting, the specific terminology of medical tourism is used. The analytical purpose of the paper is to resolve this semantic difference by suggesting an alternative terminology, 'transnational health care' that is understood as a 'context-controlled and coordinated network of health services'.