I am fascinated by the idea of packing a suitcase and traveling to another country to perform a medical procedure that is not available, not accessible, or too expensive. Medical tourism refers to a healthcare delivery model in which patients intentionally travel to seek healthcare services outside their own countries. In medical school, I learned that nothing stops patients from seeking the treatments they need, even if it means traveling into a warzone to receive the treatment. I witnessed patients coming to Syria, from nearby countries like Lebanon and Iraq, to receive treatment and diagnostic procedures that they cannot afford in their own countries.
After coming to Oxford, I joined Rhodes Incubator, an innovative space where scholars can think about and develop their startup ideas. I gained a deeper understanding of the medical travel industry and ideated about ways to globalize healthcare and link patients to international healthcare providers. I thought of creating a marketplace for medical travel in which patients can search for and book treatment around the globe. I pitched my idea during the Rhodes Incubator Demo Day and received valuable feedback.
Soon after, I was selected as an entrepreneur-in-residence for Entrepreneur First (EF) London 12 cohort. Upon joining EF, I was selected as one of the 200 individuals endorsed yearly by TechNation for an Exceptional Talent Tier 1 UK visa. I paired up with a technical cofounder and developed my concept further.
I reached out to different stakeholders in the industry to understand their perspective and experience with the current medical travel service providers. Though these customer development efforts, I came across several interesting new insights that can give my startup a considerable edge. I came up with several insights:
Medical travel patients are not financially or medically protected against malpractice and medical errors
Medical travel lacks a holistic approach to patient care
Medical services are targeted directly to patients in a consumeristic manner
There is a lack of patient and physician trust in the medical travel industry
Based on these insights, I decided to start a medical travel marketplace that would address these gaps. I aimed to address these gaps by three approaches:
Create trust in medical travel by creating an online community for medical travel in which patients can share their experiences.
Integrating medical travel into the local healthcare systems by making local healthcare providers in the home country of the patients a partner in the delivery process (Providing pretravel and post-travel consultations)
Providing insurance solutions to protect the patients from complications and reimburse for malpractice financially
I created Keea Global Health Technologies - Keea meaning Care in Japanese. We aimed to introduce medical travel as a mainstream healthcare delivery model by integrating it within the local healthcare systems. Mainly, we wanted to make local physicians a stakeholder in the medical travel process. After designing our care pathway, we moved to get early adopters. Within one month, we were able to signup +40 General Practitioners who were willing to recommend medical travel through our platform to the patients. We also had conversations with potential partners among insurance companies who would reimburse medical travel as an option for their patients.
At this point, I decided not to proceed with this company as my cofounder and I had different visions for the company. Integrating this option with the UK health system posed significant challenges. Spending time to investigate this was an incredible experience. I am now starting my DPhil in Biomedical Engineering and will keep an eye out for further opportunities!
- Alexey Youssef
