Importance of Quality And Accreditation in Health Tourism,

 Health Türkiye Brand

Didem İncegil, İbrahim Halil Kayral, Sami Yaşar, Figen Çizmeci Şenel

Introduction:

Health tourism has gained great importance today and has begun to be seen as a potential source of income for countries. For development of health tourism in a country, technological and high quality health service infrastructure is needed. Therefore Accreditation of Health Services has also become indispensable. Competitive environment which is growing day by day, has pushed countries to make differences in order to bring them forward, and Türkiye has made this difference by creating a brand - Health Türkiye. Health Türkiye aims to meet all the needs of health tourists from treatment to travel. In this study, importance of Health Services Accreditation in terms of Health Tourism is explained and also examples and data from development of Health Türkiye brand are given.

Methods:

Health Türkiye is a trademark of International Health Services Ltd. (USHAŞ), an official affiliate of Türkiye Ministry of Health, is sole official representative of Türkiye's entire health system. In this study, data of USHAŞ on health tourism by years and development processes of Quality and Accreditation in Türkiye by years are compared and effect of development of quality and accreditation on the health tourism system is examined.

Results:
USHAŞ Health Tourism data and development of Health Services Quality and Accreditation Institute (TÜSKA) in Türkiye are given in Figure.1. As can be seen from Figure.1, first steps have been taken for formation of quality standards and quality culture within the scope of "Health Transformation Program" and "Quality and Accreditation for Quality and Effective Health Services" programs of Türkiye Ministry of Health in 2003. Quality journey which started with 100 Health Services Quality Standards, reached 621 standards in 2011. Official meetings with ISQua (International Society for Quality in Health Care) were initiated within the scope of the work of Health Services Quality and Accreditation Department, which was established under roof of Türkiye Ministry of Health in 2012, and in 2014 Hospital Kit and Surveyor Training Program were accredited by ISQua. In 2015 TÜSKA was established and since 2015, TÜSKA has been continuing health services quality and accreditation studies and ISQua accreditation. In Figure.1, it is seen from USHAŞ data that since 2015, health tourism revenues and number of incoming health tourists tend to increase in Türkiye. It should be taken into account that the decrease in 2020 is due to Covid-19 pandemic.

Conclusion:

Today, health tourism is a travel that people have made to get treatment or improve their health. Health Türkiye brand has been formed thanks to Türkiye's quality infrastructure in provision of health services, and it serves purpose of announcing and presenting this quality service to whole world. Although there are many reasons that push individuals to health tourism, the most basic reason is to receive better quality health services in country they visit. Accreditation is one of the most important methods to increase quality of health services and as an indicator of service quality, and it is an indispensable element for health tourism. Continuation of accreditation will contribute to standardization of health tourism and the development of Health Türkiye brand.