Journal of Healthcare Management - May/June 2014 - (Page 214)

J o u r n al of H ealt H care M anage Ment 59:3 M ay /J une 2014 larger organizations house numerous specialists who are aware of current developments in their fields of expertise (Aiken & Hage, 1971), they are more prone to innovate than their smaller counterparts are. Management's attitude toward internal change (Kaluzny, Veney, & Gentry, 1974) is also important, since openness to change paves the way for accepting new ideas, taking risks, and rewarding innovation champions (Tannenbaum & Dupuree-Bruno, 1994). Finally, the capabilities of the HR function itself are necessary to ensure proper fit between organizational and HR innovativeness. Of the five capabilities identified by Khatri (2006), the chief HR officer's competence and the status of the HR function in the organization seem especially relevant to the adoption of MT options. Professional expertise and networking skills foster the generation of creative solutions, while a strong involvement in strategic decision making expedites their implementation. In the extant literature, there is support for the significance of these organizational characteristics in the context of both healthcare-related (Greenhalgh, Robert, MacFarlane, Bate, & Kyriakidou, 2004) and HR innovations (Khatri, Baveja, Agrawal, & Brown, 2010; Mirvis, 1997). In addition to the above characteristics, health insurance funding, geographic location, and globalization of business activities may be important in the MT case. Earlier in the article, I noted that self-insured organizations would directly benefit from the cost savings of MT options. This is consistent with press reports (Konrad, 2007)-and our own interviews-of organizations providing financial incentives for their employees to receive care abroad, thereby playing a direct role in the process. On the other hand, fully insured companies are constrained by their insurer's or third-party administrator's willingness to include such options. In other words, the flexible environment in which a self-insured organization operates makes it easier to include MT options in its health plans. Interviews of medical travel facilitators uncovered that location matters, since a sizable proportion of their clients came from large metropolitan areas (Karuppan & Karuppan, 2011). Several factors explain this phenomenon. First, these individuals have easy access to major airports. Second, they are exposed to a multicultural population and therefore tend to be more cosmopolitan, which is a dominant trait of innovators. MT may thus be more common among employers located in metropolitan areas with international airports. Another likely impetus to the adoption of MT options is the everincreasing globalization of business. Globalization forces U.S. managers to expand their organization's network of business partners and operations abroad. While traveling abroad, they may receive medical care due to unexpected illnesses and accidents. Positive experiences and the sharing of these experiences with colleagues in the home country undoubtedly foster a receptive climate for MT travel options, which in turn influence their adoption. This rationale implies that businesses with operations and/or business partners abroad are more inclined to make MT part of their EBC. 214

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Journal of Healthcare Management - May/June 2014

Journal of Healthcare Management - May/June 2014
Contents
Interview With Christopher D. Van Gorder, FACHE, President and CEO of Scripps Health
Successful Strategic Planning for a Reformed Delivery System
You, Inc.
Assessing the Feasibility of a Virtual Tumor Board Program: A Case Study
Physician Clinical Alignment and Integration: A Community–Academic Hospital Approach
Employer-Based Coverage and Medical Travel Options: Lessons for Healthcare Managers
Composite Model for Profiling Physicians Across Domains of Care

Journal of Healthcare Management - May/June 2014