Editor’s Note: When I received a recent “status change” from Joseph Barcie via a social network, I was intrigued to learn what kind of opportunity could draw him away from the great success he had at International Hospital Corporation (IHC). I quickly learned that although he had moved on to Baptist Health South in Florida, he is still tackling the challenges of international healthcare. Joseph was kind enough to grant me time to discuss the motivation for his move and expectations for the new opportunity.

Medical Travel Today (MTT): If I’m correct, you were with IHC for seven years. What about the opportunity at Baptist Health enticed you to make a change? Joseph Barcie (JB): Actually I first began considering making a change for purely personal reasons. IHC is a great company, and it was a difficult decision to leave the company, my friends and Dallas. However, I recently became a new father and had a strong desire to be closer to family in Florida, and to be able to spend more time at home with my wife and new son. Fortunately for me, about the same time I came to that realization, the opportunity at Baptist Health opened up. Baptist Health is the largest employer in south Florida and for the last 12 years has been named one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” by FORTUNE magazine. It was appealing to me not only because it put me closer to family, but also because it draws on all of my previous experience and requires that I apply my knowledge in a new direction. At IHC I was helping hospitals provide excellent care to the local communities in Latin America, and the only medical travel portion of our patient base was mainly outbound patients coming from the US. Here at Baptist Health we’re providing excellent care to local US patients and also providing care to inbound patients. And the reality is those inbound patients have completely different reasons for traveling than those who leave the US. The US medical travel patients that we treated at IHC were often people who were uninsured, underinsured or they were dealing with a long wait time to get a particular procedure or facing a very high deductible to get the desired care. Here at Baptist Health it’s quite different. Many of the people we deal with have excellent international private health insurance and others have the latitude to go any where in the world to get care. In both cases they choose Baptist Health South Florida. Last year we treated 12,000 patients from over 90 countries, some even as far as Lithuania and the Gulf Cooperation Council states. MTT: That’s a long way to travel. What’s the draw? JB: It’s our commitment to service excellence and our centers of excellence – for example, oncology, orthopedics, cardiology, neurology are a huge draw. In the case of the patient from Lithuania it was the highly specialized cardiac care that brought them here. We really provide great outcomes via the seven hospitals we operate with a total of 1,745 licensed beds, over 2,000 physicians, and about 15,000 very committed employees. Also, Baptist Health South Florida hospitals earned 30 “Best National/Best Regional Hospital” badges in the just-released U.S. News & World Report 2012-2013 Best Hospital Rankings. The honors include No. 1 – Best Regional Hospital in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metropolitan area. Getting down to the specifics of international patients, the international department is staffed year round, 24-hours a day with 70 staff members, including many professionals from different clinical areas such as nurses, physicians, chief medical officer, medical director, and many non-clinical professionals just to serve international patients. Part Two of this interview will be featured in Issue 18. About Joseph Barcie Joseph Barcie, M.D., is the assistant vice president of Baptist Health International at Baptist Health South Florida, and is responsible for international insurance business development, marketing, public relations, advertising, as well as developing marketing strategies for international patients, physicians, providers and business alliances of Baptist Health International. Prior to joining Baptist Health International Dr. Barcie was the corporate president of Centralized Services at International Healthcare Corporation in Dallas, the largest US-based private hospital system in Latin America. Before joining IHC, he held a variety of senior-level US hospital administrative positions at HCA, Tenet, and Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, was adjunct professor at Dartmouth School of Medicine, and began his career in healthcare as a medical researcher. After graduating from Florida Atlantic University, Dr. Barcie received his medical degree from UACJ School of Medicine in Mexico and continued his training in Internal Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. He earned an MBA in Healthcare Administration from the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. He is a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives, the Healthcare Information and Management System Society, the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates, and the National Association for Healthcare Quality. He lives in Palmetto Bay with his wife Leslie and new son, Ethan.