EFFICIENT ASSISTED REPRODUCTIVE CARE SUPPLY CHAIN : A CASE STUDY OF CHINESE IVF’ PATIENT FROM CHINA TO THAILAND

Abstract

According to the WHO, infertility will be the third most serious disease worldwide in the 21st century. One category of cross-border medical tourism, cross-border reproductive care (CBRC), colloquially known as reproductive tourism or fertility tourism has been developed rapidly. Now, reproductive tourism becomes a worldwide phenomenon. Since Chinese government introduced a universal two-child policy in 2016, the birth rate of China has increased lately. There is a marked increase in the number of people over the age of 35 who have fertility needs. But people over the age of 35 must rely on medical means due to the decline in ovarian function and the decline in sperm quality. Although, Chinese government has launched the policy for increasing birth rate. On the one hand, there are many infertilities who needs assisted reproductive technology in China recently. On the other hand, China's assisted reproductive market is in short supply. Therefore, a lot of Chinese patients go abroad looking for assisted reproductive treatment. Besides, complicated procedures have been specified for assisted reproductive treatment due to regulation of each country. Thus, this research is focus on the study of Chinese patients’ reproductive travel supply chain from the patients experience by using an online questionnaire. In addition, in deep interview has been employed with other players who are involved in assisted reproductive care supply chain i.e., physician, representatives from medical intermediary company. Then the current supply chain structure of assisted reproductive care in Thailand is visualized for examining the problem of the current situation of assisted reproductive care. Furthermore, two scenarios to the challenge are proposed. In addition, customer journey map as a tool is used to map patients’ experiences of current, scenario 1 and scenario 2 when they interact with the steps involved in a service.

The results indicate that employees with fixed jobs are the most participants, higher success rate, good medical technology and services, sex or trait selection, the long treatment waiting list in own country, and privacy—not wanting others to know about the treatment were identified to be the motivations for them to traveling to Thailand. They tend to outsource their travel arrangement to medical intermediary company, and they are satisfied with their journey. Moreover, high pressure and tight time were identified to be the challenges in reproductive travel. Scenario 1 and Scenario 2 both relieves the patient's time constraints, reduce the cost. However, in terms of customer goals, Scenario 1 can fulfill the patient's goal, Scenario 2 is difficult to fulfill the patient's goal. Therefore, Scenario 1 is more efficient.

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