Patients seeking medical care are traveling greater distances for treatment. The globalization of health care has given rise to a thriving global medical services industry. The ability to gain access to more advanced treatments and differences in cost and inflexible national health care systems encourage patients to seek treatment abroad. In the new information age, patients seek information about available treatment opportunities with less regard to national boundaries. International hospitals are seeking new marketing strategies for their services. Today, much of the marketing takes place on the Internet, which is accelerating the internationalization of the medical services industry. This article presents a comparative and interpretative study. We have interpreted the market orientation and degree of specialization of hospitals in Singapore and in Sweden, which in turn are compared to leading hospitals in the United States. In this research, we present evidence of different approaches to medical tourism based on different organizational frameworks for the marketing of medical services to international patients. The study indicates that market orientation results in greater emphasis on superior service quality of health care. This in turn leads to the delivery of improved services to patients.
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