Modeling medical tourism in Iran using the system dynamic approach

Medical tourism is one of the most important industries in the world، and it is considered as a unique revenue maker sector. In addition to the development of medical tourism revenues، it is well suited for the development and transfer of knowledge and technology related to the fields of work. In this article، we try to introduce medical tourism and identify an integrated model of factors that affects the demand، the supply and demand model of Sung et al. To examine the impacts of these factors on medical tourism، a system dynamic approach using related interactions and taking into consideration the impacts on each other is presented. The numerical results obtained from the proposed dynamical model، solved by the Vensim simulation software، shows that we would have a delay of six years to make the profit. This is a period of time that is necessary for introducing the country to the foreign medical tourism body. Our inspections of various scenarios indicate that if we ignore any of these factors، we will face with a delay in medical industrial development for the country. In the other words، by focusing on all proposed loops at the same time we can improve the countries medical tourism industry، in general.