Daegu Medical Tourism Promotion Institute, supporting the attraction of foreign patients using MTC·MCTC
Since 2005, Daegu has been heading to be a medical-care-centered city jointly with the public and private sectors. In 2009, the city had presented a joint brand of local medical institutions, “Medi-city Daegu,” which later achieved the grand prize of South Korea's most representative brand for six times in a row. Based on this, Daegu had shown successful prevention and control in the first outbreak of COVID-19, raising the status of "K-prevention." The efforts and role of the Medi-city Daegu Council (MDC), a public-private governance organization, played a key part in this. In response, Health Kyunghyang prepared a special series of articles about Medicity Daegu Council. <Editor's Note>
Daegu proposed "Medicity Daegu" in 2009 by presenting the vision of "creating a new growth engine in the medical industry and realizing medical capital of Korea by providing advanced medical services at the global level." As a part of this, the city government has been making efforts to attract overseas medical tourists through successfully establishing a high-tech medical complex in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province. Medicity Daegu has been recognized as Korea’s top leading brand for six consecutive years since 2015.
■MDC, establishing various cooperation with hospitals around the nation
Medicity Daegu was able to achieve the present title thanks to Medicity Daegu Council (MDC), the public-private medical consultative group.
The MDC consists of five health and medical organizations in Daegu: including the Medical Association, Dental Association, Association of Korea Medicine, Pharmaceutical Association, and Nurses Association, along with seven large hospitals, medical device associations, and the Daegu-Gyeongbuk Medical Innovation Foundation. The MDC also comprises six subcommittees (▲Planning Committee ▲Joint IRB ▲Medical Quality Improvement Committee ▲ Medical Service Improvement Committee ▲ Medical Tourism Council ▲ Foreign Healthcare Practitioner Training Committee. Each of these subcommittees carries forward the decisions made from discussions every month. Representative projects among them include "overseas medical volunteer activities" and "joint clinical research ethics committee (referred to as the Joint IRB)."
Overseas medical volunteer activities are social contribution activities designed to expand humanitarian medical techniques to the medically underprivileged people in the global village. These activities are jointly conducted by five health and medical organizations in Daegu. This makes it the only city in the whole country where local health and medical organizations cooperatively form a volunteer group. Currently, the program is being held in Vietnam for the sixth time, followed by Nepal, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, etc.
The joint IRB was organized in 2014 to promote joint clinical trials in Daegu. The committee is the nation's top joint IRB formed by six hospitals in Daegu (▲Kyungpook National University Hospital ▲Keimyung University Dongsan Medical Center ▲Daegu Catholic University Medical Center ▲Daegu Fatima Hospital ▲Kyungpook National University Chilgok Hospital).
The IRB was established to protect the human rights of subjects in clinical trials. To revitalize the IRB, MDC has been making various efforts such as simplifying documents of pharmaceutical companies and reducing the evaluation period by establishing a server that can be used by all five participating hospitals. Also, MDC signed an MOU with Pusan National University Yangsan Hospital last year to activate local IRBs and is implementing “Medicity Daegu Hospital Group.”
"The Joint IRB, which has the medical institutions lead the planning and operation of clinical trial projects, serves as a focal point for promoting joint clinical trials in the region, and regular evaluation is held every third Tuesday and quick evaluation every other Monday," Min Pok-kee, director of the Daegu Medical Tourism Council, said. "MDC will continue to put the effort in various areas such as establishing Medi-Expo and high-tech medical complex for the realization of Medicity Daegu."
■Daegu Medical Tourism Promotion Institute, stepping forward for overseas medical tourism
Since 2009, Daegu has been making continuous investments to attract foreign patients. Indeed, the city succeeded in attracting 20,000 medical tourists for the first time in the non-capital area in 2016 despite the unstable international situations involving MERS and SARS.
Medical tourism was able to be successfully settled mostly by the Daegu Medical Tourism Promotion Institute. It consists of five local university hospitals and small and medium-sized hospitals and provides services in various fields such as hospital guide, translation, and accommodation to foreign patients.
Also, about 3,000 medical institutions will be evaluated just in case of medical accidents, and those that pass the review are designated and operated as leading medical institutions for patients from abroad. Besides, Medicity signed contracts with local hospitals in China, Kazakhstan, and Shanghai for overseas medical expansion and is exporting its medical system.
As a result, the number of overseas patients is increasing every year. The number had reached about 30,000 last year—in 2009 it was 2,816. According to Daegu, the last decade saw an estimated 140,000 foreigners who visited the city for medical tourism. For this, Daegu has been the nation's No. 1 medical tourism cluster construction project for the past three consecutive years since 2017 and had been selected as the leading medical technology that attracts foreign patients for the last eight years in a row.
Chairman Soon-do Cha of the Daegu Medical Tourism Promotion Institute said, "To promote the attraction of foreign patients, the Medi-city is producing and distributing Daegu Medical Tourism Cards (MTC) and Daegu Medi-Tour magazines. We plan to continue various activities, including Medical & Clinical Training Center (MCTC) for foreigners, for attracting overseas patients and improving medical institutions."
