NITI Aayog today launched a framework to track the performance of district hospitals across all States and Union Territories focusing primarily on outputs and outcomes. The index named Health of our Hospitals was launched by NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Dr. Arvind Panagariya.
It is a joint exercise of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and NITI Aayog to track the performance of District Hospitals across India. Despite large funds being allocated to District Hospitals and their critical role in healthcare provision, there was no comprehensive system to assess their performance based on outcomes.
Similar to NITI’s ‘Performance on Health Outcomes’ index, created to rank States on the basis of their performance on measurable health indicators, this framework is expected to rank the district hospitals on their performance.
In ranking the nearly 700 district hospitals across India, it is for the first time that feedback from patients will be captured. Under this framework, ranks would be generated in an online portal with no manual entries and minimal additional work for States. Data will be validated before getting displayed on the online portal in the form of hospital rankings.
This framework for ranking district hospitals, will also help in focusing on achieving key health outcomes and is expected to foster a competitive spirit amongst District Hospitals and States in addition to in fostering a culture of cooperation by way of sharing of good practices. It will also help in identify facilities which need focus and those that need to be incentivised by the State governments.
