India’s hospitals face a call for basic safety benchmarks
Prof Dr M Srinivas, Member of NITI Aayog, used the platform of FICCI HEAL 2026 to press for a floor, not a ceiling, in Indian healthcare: every hospital should meet minimum standards for patient safety and quality of care. The message was plain. Hospitals cannot be judged only by volume, branding, or specialist capability if bedside safety remains inconsistent from one institution to the next.
He argued that Indian healthcare needs a common benchmark that can be recognized across the system and, eventually, beyond it. The ambition is not cosmetic. In a country where patients move between public and private facilities, and between districts with very different resources, standardized expectations for safe care can shape everything from infection control to medication practices, escalation pathways, and patient trust.
A single sentence from the forum captured the urgency: India should reach a point where the world recognizes that Indian hospitals maintain a minimum standard of patient care.
Interoperable records and the digital backbone behind care
Dr Srinivas placed the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission at the center of that transformation. He described the digital health ecosystem as a potential enabler of structured, interoperable information that can support more effective use of artificial intelligence and better care coordination. The clinical logic is straightforward: fragmented records slow decisions, duplicate tests, and increase the risk of avoidable error, while shared data can make the patient journey more continuous.
Plans through the National Health Authority to build interoperable ABHA IDs and electronic health records on a unified platform point toward a system in which data can travel with the patient. In practical terms, that means a clinician in one hospital should be able to see a more complete picture of prior treatment, diagnostics, and follow-up rather than relying on paper summaries or incomplete recall. For chronic disease management, surgical continuity, and emergency care, this is not administrative polish; it is a patient-safety tool.
He linked structured data to the next layer of healthcare delivery as well. Artificial intelligence depends on readable, standardized information. Without interoperability, AI tools remain limited by missing context and siloed records. With it, the same infrastructure could support triage, surveillance, resource planning, and earlier identification of patterns that hospitals often miss when information stays trapped inside one system.
Prevention, not just tertiary care, has to absorb the disease burden
Dr Srinivas also pushed the discussion away from hospital walls and toward population health. He pointed to the rising burden of non-communicable diseases and argued that prevention must take precedence over an exclusive reliance on tertiary care treatment. The point matters because tertiary hospitals are where disease often arrives late, expensive, and harder to reverse. If prevention fails upstream, the downstream system absorbs the cost in crowded wards, advanced complications, and financial stress on families.
He tied that concern to Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana and the broader responsibility of the health system to protect patients from excessive out-of-pocket spending. Coverage alone does not solve access if people still delay care until disease is advanced. Prevention, timely diagnosis, and affordable intervention have to work together, especially for conditions that progress silently for years before becoming catastrophic.
One line from the address carried special weight for clinicians and policymakers alike: India must focus on preventing non-communicable diseases rather than treating them only at tertiary hospitals.
Public and private hospitals were both pulled into the same obligation
The forum did not frame quality as a public-sector problem alone. Dr Srinivas called for a blend of clinical care and hospitality across both public and private hospitals, a reminder that patient experience is shaped not just by procedures performed but by how people are received, informed, and moved through the system. Clean handoffs, respectful communication, and dependable service all influence whether care is trusted and whether patients return for follow-up.
He also urged private providers to participate in universal health schemes and widen affordable services in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. Access gaps are often geographic before they are technological. When advanced care clusters in major metros, families outside those centers face travel burdens, delayed diagnosis, and loss of income while seeking treatment. Expanding affordability and reach beyond major urban hubs can reduce those delays, but only if the services remain financially usable for ordinary households.
Industry leaders framed the same problem from different angles
The broader discussion at FICCI HEAL 2026 echoed the same central theme: India’s healthcare ambitions will depend on trust, affordability, access, and capability moving in the same direction. Dr Ashutosh Raghuvanshi, Chair of the FICCI Health Services Committee and MD & CEO of Fortis Healthcare, said the system will need sustained investment, stronger prevention and early diagnosis, a skilled workforce, and closer public-private collaboration to meet the goals associated with Viksit Bharat 2047.
Dr Kenji Shibuya, CEO of Medical Excellence JAPAN, pointed to the possibility of India and Japan working together on healthcare transformation. He described India’s “Heal in India” vision as an opportunity to combine advanced medical care with Ayurveda and wellness awareness, positioning the country as a destination for care beyond its domestic market.
Mr Anuj Pasrija of J &J MedTech India argued that the hospital of the future will be defined less by buildings and beds than by continuity across the entire patient journey. Mr Varun Khanna of Aster DM Quality Care Ltd made a similar case for a system that is accessible, affordable, equitable, and focused on outcomes.
Quality standards will only matter if they reach the bedside
The policy thread running through the conference was direct: India cannot rely on isolated centers of excellence while everyday hospitals operate with uneven safety norms. Minimum standards, interoperable records, prevention-focused care, and broader affordability are all parts of the same framework. Without them, digital ambition will outpace clinical reality; without them, the promise of universal access will remain unevenly distributed.
The unanswered operational question is how quickly those standards can be translated into enforceable hospital-level practice across a system as large and diverse as India’s, and how consistently public and private institutions will be held to the same bar.