NEW DELHI: Aiming to foster competition and nudge government hospitals to improve health services, Niti Aayog, along with the health ministry, has started ranking
district hospitals
on the basis of their performance on health indicators.
There are around 734 district hospitals across the country which provide secondary healthcare facilities to people. In addition, around 300 other hospitals, such as women’s hospitals at the district level, will also be rated. The decision to track the performance of district hospitals came as the Modi dispensation believed that despite large amounts pf money being allocated to these hospitals which have a critical role in providing healthcare, there was no comprehensive system to assess their performance based on measurable health outcomes.
The rating will create an environment to nudge hospitals towards improvement. The entire exercise will also provide an evidence base and help identify hospitals that need to be incentivised.
The indicators on which performance will be measured include OPD per doctor, number of laboratory tests per technician, stock out rate of essential drugs, bed occupancy rate, C-section rate, blood bank replacement rate and post-surgical infection rate. Number of functional hospital beds per 1,00,000 population, ratio of doctors, nurses and paramedical staff are other factors which will be taken into account while accessing the performance of district hospitals.
The index will also capture, for the first time, feedback from patients as high weightage has been assigned for patient satisfaction score.