The newest trend in town is the healthtel--a new destination to visit, a new tourism in the making. In simple medical terms, a healthtel is a five-star wellness hotel-cum-hospital that’s a super combination of a resort and a full health maintenance facility rolled into one, providing the ultimate healthcare in a luxurious ambience...
Welcome to the world of the wellness hotel - the "healthtel" - a destination with a dual purpose. It’s a resort as well as a full health maintenance facility. And, if necessity, indeed, be the mother of invention, then wellness hotels is a concept that easily fits that definition.
Gone are the days when Florence Nightingale - that angelic lady with the lamp - flitted from bed to bed, nursing the sick and bruised soldiers. She influenced modern hospital design, putting forth the idea that well-organised hospitals were better environments for healing. But Nightingale’s blueprint was designed more for the convenience of nurses than patients; her wards comprised large rooms with as many as three dozen beds, making it easy to quickly spot patients who needed emergency care.
Today, the focus is to provide an environment that not only caters to the needs of the doctors and nurses, but also provide the patients all the basic and the luxury details for a pleasant stay. “In the past, we focussed on the care-giver,” says Joy Fay, Director of Clinical Operations at the Medical Care Unit at the Methodist Hospital, Indianapolis, US. Instead, healthcare providers need to think, “If I’m in bed as a patient, what would I feel like?” The perspective seems to be paying off. Patient dissatisfaction at The Methodist is just 3 per cent, and the facility saved an estimated $5 million in its first year of operations, thanks to reduced errors and staff overtime.
The economics of healthcare in the US is changing. Hospitals here are going through a major makeover. At St Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota, identical single rooms have lounge space and private bathrooms. Likewise, the new 10-storeyed, $222 million addition to Cooper University Hospital set to open in Camden, New Jersey, will have well-lit private rooms and a staff trained in customer service by Ritz-Carlton.
Workhardt Hospitals in Mumbai have special offers for their patients. After surgery is over, you can be shifted to a hotel shortlisted by the hospital for post-operative treatment and rest. The Leela Kempinski, which is a 30 minutes’ drive from the Workhardt Hospital, offers special tariffs and discounts (10-15 per cent on all facilities) to all Workhardt patients. The Renaissance Mariott hotel also provides discounts to patients from Workhardt.
Increased waiting times for appointments, consumer-choice insurance plans and self-referrals have all contributed to this medical travel trend in the US. The ‘healthtel’ experience can be had in many states across the US.
The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, is a great example of the rise of domestic and international medical travel. Nearly one lakh patients travel more than 120 miles each year to the famed healthcare institution. The phenomenon traces back to the 1920s, when patients took trains all the way from Mexico to the south-eastern Minnesota city. When the Clinic began assigning tracking numbers to its patients, “no.1” was from Canada (patients are now in the six millions). And these days, patients who travel to the Mayo Clinic from New York, Los Angeles and everywhere in between, have created a medical tourism boom in Rochester and contribute to the trend nationally.
With physician referrals on the rise and many taking their healthcare into their own hands, patients are willing to travel for better care, expedited appointments and multi-specialty care. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the average length of hospital stay in the US is 4.8 days.
In Rochester, The Kahler Grand Hotel - around since 1921 - offers a variety of unique services and amenities aimed at making Mayo Clinic patients comfortable as they get healthy.
You could meet up with a varied cross-section of society at the Kahler Grand Hotel; it could be the President of Iraq, who had visited recently and stayed for three weeks while he got a complete physical at the Mayo Clinic. Or, it could be a platinum-selling, Grammy Award-winning rock star; a corporate CEO from Beverly Hills; someone like a Ms Williams, a permanent guest since 1979, who just celebrated her 100th birthday!
The Mayo-Kahler story began in the early 1900s, when the Mayo brothers requested Henry Kahler to establish a high-end hotel to provide facilities for visiting patients and their families. Thus was born the Kahler Grand Hotel, with its 220-room property, a 150-bed convalescent unit, and a 210-bed hospital and operating suites for oral, plastic and general surgery. Over the years, the Kahler Grand Hotel has housed a dormitory for nursing students, a colonoscopy ward, and birthing suites. The Kahler Hotels have evolved throughout the years to meet the diverse needs of patients and visitors, but Kahler’s dedication to top-notch service, excellence and first-class hospitality is still alive.
The ‘healthtel’ offers medical concierge services, an all-in-one building dedicated to meeting the special needs of patients and their families, and patient rates from $79 to $139 per night, with free parking.
And it doesn’t end here. The personal concierge service helps with appointments and escorting families to the Mayo Clinic, and a medical supply store on site delivers medicines to the patients’ rooms. To top it all, the Kahler’s 24-hour, in-room dining service offers special health and dietary menu alternatives to patients.
But the Kahler Grand is just one of a number of special ‘healthtels’ throughout the US.
Take, for example, the Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The lush greenery, indoor pond and reading spaces in its lobby could just as easily belong in a Hilton. So could the entryway of Parrish Medical Centre in Titusville, Florida, around since just over four years ago, with its soaring glass dome roof and tranquil pool. Musicians play classical music there several days a week.
The changes - especially the natural light and soothing music -- receive high marks from the staff, and costly employee turnover has dropped from a 14 per cent annual rate to 12.5 per cent since 2000. It was noticed at the Bronson Hospital that bathing rooms in natural light led to shorter patient stays and higher staff satisfaction.
Designs include more skylights and rooms that overlook gardens; studies show that patients recover faster when they see trees from their windows.
At the Arkansas Children’s Hospital, an $8 million renovation added family areas and 22 private rooms. Having relatives comfortably camped nearby, boosted the patients’ morale, besides taking a load off the nurses’ shoulders.
Tucked inside the Santa Monica mountain foothills in California’s Westlake Village, outside Los Angeles, you'll find the Four Seasons Hotel. But this isn't just any luxury Four Seasons. Attached to the hotel is the California Health and Longevity Institute, Inc., where doctors work with you one-on-one to deal with “nutrition, stress, biochemistry, genetics, fitness, spiritual health and diagnostics, all in one place.” Plus, cosmetic dentistry, dermatology skincare, and even DNA testing!
The Institute and Four Seasons Hotel Westlake Village is spread over 20 acres of land. Executive physicals provide three-day packages that include the most comprehensive preventive care offered in the industry. They also offer diagnostic lab screenings that target men’s or women’s health challenges as well as age, family history and other risk factors. A team of professionals, including a physician, dietician, exercise physiologist, and Life Advisor help create a personalised, healthy-living programme that targets patients’ needs. The executive physical costs $5,260.
In Dallas, the Cooper Aerobics Center and Lodge is located on a 30-acre estate and is known for its southern hospitality. Dr Kenneth H Cooper, father of the aerobics genre, has been a key figure in popularising the preventative medicine movement. He is 76 and still sees patients, to this day. He opened the Cooper Aerobics Center in 1970 in Dallas, and the Centre prides itself in promoting a “fast-track approach to optimal health”. If you’re serious about rejuvenation, fitness and good health, and want to leave their live-in facility with positive lifestyle improvements, this is the place for you.
Located on the property is the Cooper Guest Lodge—a 62-room colonial-style hotel, a day spa, gymnasium, exercise facilities, clinic and even a long-term residential community. The centre offers, and recommends, a six- or 14-day programme, but they do offer shorter, 4-day courses. The 4-day course provides fitness essentials and will help you jump-start a new routine for your lifestyle. Their staff helps patients achieve their goals, whether it is to lose weight, manage stress, or gain control over cholesterol or blood pressure problems.
The centre also has an optional Cooper Clinic medical evaluation, which is a comprehensive, preventive exam. Once a detailed report is written, a physician and exercise physiologist will develop a fitness prescription catering to your needs. If you have had a recent exam or are healthy, you may choose to receive the fitness assessment.
The six-day wellness retreat costs $2,895 and includes a physical fitness assessment, workshops such as fitness and exercise, stress management, nutrition, strategies for behaviour change and maximising natural immunity, two personal training sessions, three nutritious gourmet meals each day, healthy snacks, two cooking classes, stress management techniques, etc.
The 13-Day Wellness Retreat costs $4795, and includes an additional week of wellness training and motivational support, more consultations with a wellness counsellor, four personal training sessions, and a chance to repeat or concentrate on your specific goals, like weight loss or stress management.
Thus, the growing health consciousness, affordability factor, double-income families and medical insurance cover are expanding the healthcare market. There is no dearth of hospitals wanting to cash-in on the opportunity. At the same time, one must keep in mind that ‘healthtels’ serve a definitive purpose. They are not 5-star hotels, nor getaways for hypochondriacs. You go because you need medical care in a comfortable environment and stay close to your loved ones at the same time. .