Medical Tourism Association Announces Renee-Marie Stephano, Esq. as New President

West Palm Beach, FL, July 01, 2009 -- The Medical Tourism Association , the first international non-profit trade association for the medical tourism industry, announces Renée-Marie Stephano as the new President of the MTA. Renée-Marie Stephano, formally the COO of the Medical Tourism Association still also serves as Editor of the Medical Tourism Magazine. The growth of the MTA has been significant this year and this growth demands increased management.

"We are pleased to announce Jessica Johnson as our new Operations Director and Jonathan Edelheit will remain as CEO. MTA will soon be opening a new regional office in Panama and Turkey and with the development of its regional offices; the Association foresees a greater ability to proactively improve communication and education for medical tourism through the world," explains Stephano.

"This is a tremendous opportunity for me to further the development of the association in the areas of research and education," adds Stephano. "The MTA have been a leading driver in the industry through our education workshops and conferences. From a business perspective, we are confident in our membership’s ability to provide the highest quality of care to their patients. It is now time to take the next step in raising consumer awareness of this great potential. With greater consumer awareness we should see medical tourism explode in consumer markets around the world including Russia, Asia, Europe, Canada the Middle East and in the United States," she added.

Ms. Stephano received her Juris Doctorate degree in Law in Pennsylvania. She has a background in international marketing and health law and then went on to open her own law firm, spending six years serving as general counsel for a US national healthcare administrator which was the first US healthcare administrator to implement medical tourism into both self-funded and fully insured health plans in the United States.

Ms. Stephano works full time for the Medical Tourism Association and is considered a leader in her field in medical tourism. In her role at the Medical Tourism Association, Ms. Stephano helps countries and hospitals create strategic marketing plans and helps identify target markets. Assisting in the creation of healthcare clusters composed of government bodies, hospitals, clinics, hotels and tour operators, Ms. Stephano has helped many countries further their goals of attracting foreign patients and international insurance companies. Ms. Stephano works with global health care providers to maintain transparency with respect to quality of care as they increase their flow of patients and she also works with medical tourism facilitators to establish best practices which ultimately ensure patient safety.

The Medical Tourism Association is made up of the top international hospitals, healthcare providers, medical tourism facilitators, insurance companies, and other affiliated companies and members with the common goal of promoting the highest level of quality of healthcare to patients in a global environment. Our Association promotes the interests of its healthcare provider and medical tourism facilitators members. The Medical Tourism Association has three tenets: Transparency, Communication and Education.

The Medical Tourism Association seeks to provide transparency in both quality of care and pricing. Every day we see more and more that the globalization of healthcare has created a very flat world. We exchange technology, information, communication, physicians and patients. In order to ensure patient safety, it is our goal to create a transparency about the quality of healthcare that can be found in each country. With this, it is increasingly important to create a transparency in pricing as well so patients traveling overseas for care can be sure of what they are receiving without hidden costs or unforeseen expenses. The Medical Tourism Association is also working on the Quality of Care Project, which will change the way we look at the reporting of global healthcare statistics and the quality of care available at hospitals around the world.

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