სამედიცინო ტურიზმი: საერთაშორისო გრძელვადიანი მოვლა [LTC-08]

სამედიცინო ტურიზმი: საერთაშორისო გრძელვადიანი მოვლა [LTC-08]

As Georgia consolidates its position as a regional hub for medical tourism — receiving over 100,000 treatment-seeking visitors annually according to the Georgian National Tourism Administration — long-term care (LTC) facilities increasingly admit residents who cross international borders not for episodic procedures, but for sustained, months-long or permanent placement. This creates a distinct operational burden: every standard facility process, from fee transparency and multilingual consent to cross-jurisdictional complaints resolution and advance care planning, acquires a layer of legal, ethical, and communicative complexity that domestically oriented protocols are structurally unequipped to address. Failures at this intersection are not administrative inconveniences — they represent measurable risks to patient safety, dignity, and family trust, and they expose facilities to liability under both Georgian law and the standards of international accreditation bodies. This course addresses that gap directly, equipping care teams to satisfy all ten Joint Commission International (JCI) criteria for international resident management within the long-term care setting.

The course is grounded in JCI Long-Term Care Accreditation Standards (5th edition), WHO guidelines on patient safety in cross-border care, and the ISO 9001:2015 quality management framework as applied to health services. Content is developed from documented case patterns in South Caucasus LTC facilities and benchmarked against best-practice models operating in accredited facilities across Central and Eastern Europe. Teaching methodology combines structured didactic modules with scenario-based learning drawn from realistic cross-border admission cases, enabling participants to move from conceptual understanding to applied clinical and administrative decision-making within a single, integrated learning experience.

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Distinguish the ten JCI international resident criteria from standard domestic admission requirements and articulate the specific compliance obligations each criterion imposes on facility staff.
• Implement a transparent, multilingual pricing and financial disclosure process that meets both Georgian healthcare consumer protection regulations and internationally recognised informed-consent standards.
• Design communication protocols that account for language barriers, differing health literacy levels, and time-zone-separated family decision-makers, including defined escalation pathways for urgent clinical events.
• Apply cross-border complaints management procedures in accordance with JCI patient rights standards, ensuring that international residents retain effective grievance recourse regardless of their country of origin or legal domicile.
• Construct culturally and legally appropriate advance care planning and end-of-life documentation for residents whose values, religious practices, and legal frameworks may differ substantially from Georgian defaults.
• Evaluate a facility’s existing LTC policies against international resident criteria to identify compliance gaps and propose evidence-based corrective actions prioritised by patient safety risk.

Who Should Attend

This course is designed for nursing staff, social workers, care coordinators, admissions managers, and clinical administrators working in licensed long-term care, rehabilitation, or residential memory-care facilities in Georgia and the broader South Caucasus region. It is particularly relevant to mid-career professionals in facilities currently pursuing or maintaining JCI or ISO accreditation, and to team leaders responsible for policy development, quality assurance, or international liaison functions. Facility medical directors and legal compliance officers who oversee cross-border admission workflows will also derive substantial benefit from the applied standards content.

Course Structure

This self-paced online course comprises six structured modules with an estimated study time of four to five hours, incorporating case-based scenarios, reflective exercises, and a summative competency assessment requiring a minimum passing score of 75 percent. Successful completion awards 5 CME/CPD credits recognised under the Georgian Medical Practitioners’ Professional Development Framework.