The government is reportedly developing a national framework to grade public and private hospitals on healthcare quality and safety. The system aims to align with international standards and help patients make informed choices.

According to a report in The Economic Times, the framework is being prepared with Niti Aayog and is expected to be ready by the end of this year. Hospital grading could begin as early as the next financial year, according to a senior government official that told the financial daily.

The initiative, started several years ago, has gained momentum under Niti Aayog’s new team. The government believes that transparent and audited hospital gradings based on international parameters could improve India’s healthcare ecosystem and promote medical tourism, it said.

Last week, Niti Aayog held a stakeholder consultation led by member M Srinivas to create a credible, sustainable, and patient-centric framework. It will cover quality of care, patient safety, clinical outcomes, and patient experience across different hospital categories.

The standardised framework will include several parameters such as patient safety measures and specialty-specific outcomes. These may involve patient-reported outcome and experience measures, readmission rates, and medication errors, the report added.

Indicators like post-transplant survival rates and postoperative mortality rates for oncology procedures could also be part of the framework, said an industry expert who took part in the consultation.

The framework could help hospitals that invest in clinical quality and outcomes to stand out. It may also enable payors to develop products more closely linked to healthcare outcomes and quality, Chakraborty added.

Currently, private hospitals must comply with the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers framework for patient safety and clinical quality. However, related reports and outcomes are not made public.

In comparison, the UK's National Health Service reports and audits clinical outcomes and quality indicators, allowing patients to compare hospitals based on the services they need.