Treatment destinations and visit frequencies for patients seeking medical treatment overseas from the United Arab Emirates: results from Dubai Health Authority reporting during 2009–2016

• Published in: Tropical Diseases, Travel Medicine and Vaccines
• Main Authors: Wafa K. Alnakhi, Jodi B. Segal, Kevin D. Frick, Altijani Hussin, Saifuddin Ahmed, Laura Morlock
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: BMC 2019
• Subjects: Overseas treatment; Medical travel; Travel medicine; Public health; United Arab Emirates; Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40794-019-0086-8; https://doaj.org/article/9317010e108e47f0a82d0f748e0f7d56

Abstract Background Each year, the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) spends millions of dollars to cover the costs of United Arab Emirates (UAE) nationals seeking healthcare overseas. Patients may travel overseas to seek an array of treatments. It is important to analyze the number of trips and treatment destinations for patients travelling overseas to provide baseline information for the DHA to improve polices and strategies related to overseas treatment for UAE nationals. Methods Administrative data were obtained from the DHA for UAE nationals who sought medical treatment overseas during 2009–2016. We examined the number of trips and treatment destinations by medical specialty, age, gender, years of travel and travel seasons. Multinomial logistic and negative binomial regression models were used to assess the relationships of the treatment destinations and number of trips, respectively, with the key variables of interest. Results The study included data from 6557 UAE nationals. The top three treatment destinations were Germany (46%), the UK (19%) and Thailand (14%). The most common medical specialties were orthopedic surgery (13%), oncology (13%) and neurosurgery (10%). Oncology had the highest expected number of trips adjusted for a number of covariates (IRR 1.34, 95% CI: 1.24–1.44). Regarding destination variation, patients had a lower relative risk ratio of seeking healthcare in Germany in the winter (RRR 0.68, 95% CI: 0.57–0.80). Endocrinology was the most common medical specialty sought in the UK (RRR 3.36, 95% CI: 2.01–5.60). Conclusions This is the first study to systematically examine the current practice of medical treatment overseas among UAE nationals. The results demonstrate that treatment destinations, medical specialties for which treatment was sought, age, gender and travel season are significant factors in understanding overseas travel for medical care. The study can guide the DHA in collecting more data for further research that may lead to policy-relevant information about sending patients to the ...