Many
patients from outside the U.S. obtain medical care in St. Louis
region medical facilities.
By William Poe
When developers recently announced plans for a hotel near the
corner of Forest Park Boulevard and Euclid Avenue, they weren’t
looking to nearby Forest Park to draw overnight guests. Instead,
they were looking up the street to Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St.
Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University School of
Medicine.
That’s because thousands of people from outside the immediate
St. Louis area make extended visits each year to obtain medical
care here. Hundreds of those patients are from outside the U.S.
borders, and the number grows every year as St. Louis competes
with the Mayo Clinic, Sloan-Kettering Institute and other renowned
medical centers for patients from all parts of the country and
the world.
“The medical care offered here is a good opportunity for St.
Louis to shine as an international city,” says Daniel Mueller,
Ph.D., director of BJC International Health Services. “We offer
a tremendous amount of sophisticated clinical care, and international
patients routinely travel here to access it. Excellent health
care knows no boundaries.”
Burton M. Needles, M.D., a medical oncologist with St. John’s
Mercy Medical Center and Barnes-Jewish Hospital, says the number
of foreign patients seeking care here is growing. In fact, Burton
is concerned that the medical community needs more language
interpreters to accommodate the growing influx of international
patients.
“We are going to see a continued expansion of foreign referrals
to St. Louis, and the medical profession needs to prepare for
this with medical personnel who can speak the languages and
interpret,” Needles says.
BJC International Health Services (IHS) was formed three years
ago to serve as “a comprehensive service for our international
patients,” Mueller says. “We’ve always had international patients
at Barnes-Jewish and Children’s Hospital, and there was a need
for better coordination.”
A primary mission of IHS, Mueller says, is to attract international
patients to St. Louis and, once here, help them through the
process of health care delivery and living in St. Louis.
The average foreign patient, Mueller says, stays in St. Louis
for two to three weeks at a time and is accompanied here by
three to five other persons who spend money on food, housing,
transportation and entertainment. Although many foreign patients
are financially well-heeled and private pay, some are not and
rely on their own governments for financial assistance, Mueller
says.
IHS, which is a joint venture of BJC Health System and Washington
University School of Medicine, will have served some 230 foreign
patients this year and plans to serve 400 patients in 2001 and
750 patients in 2002. Not all foreign patients come to the attention
of IHS, and it cannot track international patients in non-BJC
facilities.
Why the surging influx of foreign patients? Physicians providing
treatment say the trend echoes the growth of St. Louis as an
international city.
“St. Louis has much more of an international flavor now,” says
Needles, who notes that a significant increase in the local
Hispanic population has meant more local medical care for family
members who traditionally had traveled to Houston, New York
or Chicago. He says immigrants living in St. Louis commonly
bring family members to St. Louis for complex medical care.
Dionysios Veronikis, M.D., a gynecologic surgeon at St. John’s
Mercy, says he now treats patients who formerly would have traveled
to the Mayo clinic and other high-profile medical institutions.
“St. Louis has an international airport and is looked upon very
favorably as a destination.”
Mueller agrees, “St. Louis is now an international city. You
can see it in the large number of ethnic restaurants, the direct
flights from foreign capitals and the major corporations here
that are engaged in business all over the world. Boeing has
53 sales offices in the world; we have a world-class bio-tech
industry and the human genome project. St. Louis is getting
on the world map.”
Washington University School of Medicine and Saint Louis University
School of Medicine are credited with creating worldwide awareness,
at least among some physicians, of St. Louis as a major health
center.
“For years, we’ve trained doctors who return to their home countries
to practice,” Mueller says. “We have good linkage with them,
and they send patients here.”
Mueller says most foreign patients travel to St. Louis for cancer
treatment, back and spinal cord injuries, orthopedic care, living
donor programs, and other specialized care not readily available
outside the U.S.
While Needles says he sees cancer patients from South America,
Europe and India, Veronikis treats patients from most states
in the U.S. and from all parts of the globe. IHS is engaged
in a campaign to attract more patients from South America, the
Middle East and Pacific Rim countries.
IHS has forged medical partnerships with hospitals in Saudi
Arabia, Ecuador and Finland and routinely communicates through
the Internet with more than 12,000 foreign physicians and other
individuals. The organization also markets to U.S. embassies
in foreign countries and to so-called patient brokers who contract
with foreign governments and hospitals to identify medical centers
for specialized care.
Mueller estimates that 25 percent of foreign patients are self-referred.
Because many of those patients learn about St. Louis on the
Internet, IHS is registered with more than 30 country- and region-specific
search engines in its key markets. Plans call for patient success
stories to be placed in foreign newspapers, Mueller says.
IHS has been successful enough to be recognized by the World
Trade Center of St. Louis as its “International Business of
the Year.”
Mueller says the St. Louis medical community can easily treat
more foreign patients. What St. Louis needs, he says, is more
services for patients and families. “We need more limousines,
more hotel space, more linguists, more services to support them
while they are here.”
William V. Poe is principal of Poe Communications, a St.
Louis advertising and marketing communications firm.
