Online reputation and visibility: the role of the web in supporting medical tourism

Can visibility and online reputation impact on medical tourism choices? How can hospitals gain this visibility within the\r\nWeb? Through a Web analysis of some well-known Italian hospitals, we develop an exploratory analysis. The study aims\r\nto develop a deeper understanding of the role that online reputation and visibility within the Web can play on medical\r\njourneys choices, in particular on domestic medical tourism. We found that visibility impacts on the ability of hospitals to\r\nattract the interest also of geographically more distant users. However, we found also that the most common rankings of\r\nonline reputation (Google and QSalute ratings) don’t match with this attraction ability. Therefore, in the conclusion\r\nsection we illustrate an innovative project, Ihealthyou, a marketplace for tackling the cross-border health mobility and\r\nproviding patients with reliable easy access to high-quality medical care in Europe.