Corporate travel medicine: Benefit analysis of on-site services

Background. Corporations with employees who travel internationally address their travel-related medical needs in a variety of ways. Options utilized i nclude corporate medical departments, local health departments, and local c linics, both contracted and independent. Methods: A travel clinic at a university medical center routinely provided preventive travel medicine services for many of the local companies. Two of these companies had on-site medical clinics which routinely saw patients f or occupational and personal health reasons. At these companies, the univer sity travel clinic assisted in moving employee travel medicine services to the on-site clinic. Direct and indirect costs for new, predeparture employe e travel care at each company were compared before, and after, the move on- site. Results: When measured per patient, total cost savings associated with the on-site travel clinic were greater than 15% at both companies (17%, 26%), p rimarily due to the value of the employees' time saved with decreased trave l. Utilization increased at one company by 24% over the first 8 months and lead to higher overall cost, but this cost increase was only 4%. Informal a ssessments of the value of the on-site service at both companies was unifor mly positive. Conclusion: For certain corporate settings, on-site clinics may be effectiv e ways of providing travel medicine services.