THEORETICAL PRINCIPLES AND INSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENT OF THE MEDICAL TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN THE SYSTEM OF FACTORS PREVENTING THE HUMAN CAPITAL LOSS

The strengthening of the socio-economic importance of the institutional environment of healthcare providers within the context of increasing the value of human potential quality parameters is justified in the article. The modern paradigm of medical treatment foresees putting the emphasis on internationalization and service market globalization, that are aimed at prevention of health capital loss. One of its consequences became the crystallization of highly profitable international business model, which unites the medical and the tourist activity. Based on the investigation of scientific materials within the scope of capitalized human potential and tourist studies, the authors have proven the urgency and importance of the new field of scientific research – the medical tourism. The background that has led to the significant relief in solving the problems of treatmnet availability on the international level was described. Among them: the rapid development of informational-communicational technologies, diversity of business-processes in the tourism field, improvement of transport infrastructure, development of logistics and medical services' marketing. The approaches towards interpretation of medical tourism in the national and world literature were studied. This fact allowed the authors to explore their own understanding of the category “international medical tourism”, to schematically present its structure and interconnection with healthcare tourism. Besides, the typology of streams of the international medical tourism service consumers is investigated. The figures are presented, they indicate an increase of international medical tourism in the world. The geographical map of tourist destinations is investigated. The reasons for such destinations are explained. The institutional environment of the medical tourism development in Ukraine is outlined. New events that facilitate the development of national and international tourism, including the territory of Lviv region, are described.