Lifestyle Hospital Ranking Methodology

The objective of this research was to arrive at a list of Top Hospitals & Clinics in India. The specialities that were included in the research were Orthopedic, Dentistry, Diabetology, Skin & Dermatology, Plastic Surgery, Hair (Trichology), Ophthalmology and Bariatrics. The research consisted of four major modules: Desk Research, Recommendations from Medical Experts, Patient Experience, and Hospital Factual & Quality Metrics. These were followed by a scientifically developed analysis and ranking process.

Module 1 | DESK research

Module 1 was a secondary research module. A comprehensive list of Multi-specialty/ Super Specialty/ Single Specialty Hospitals and Clinics was generated with the help of the internet, magazines and other publications. The various sources used for generation of hospital list included:

• List of Hospitals/clinics from previous surveys (based on availability)
• A discussion with specialists to add/ delete any Hospital to ensure there's a comprehensive list.

As it is not possible to get a completely exhaustive list of hospitals and include them in the survey, the option was to add any new hospital name in the survey form if any respondent mentioned any hospital name outside our list. Effectively, every Hospital had a chance of getting covered in the survey if their name was mentioned by the respondents.

MODULE 2 | Recommendations From Medical Experts

A total sample survey of 2545 interviews were conducted across 10 cities viz Delhi/NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Pune & Lucknow. The respondents were asked to rank & rate top hospitals/clinics in their cities, top hospitals/clinics in their respective specialities. The parameters used for ratings were Value for Money, Team of Consultants, Quality of treatment – both OPD & In-patient, Infrastructure, Hygiene & Cleanliness, Facilities & Public convenience, Innovation & research facilities, Overall Brand Legacy.

In this module, a structured questionnaire was administered to doctors specializing in GPs/ CPs, Specialists (Orthopedic surgeon, dentists, Diabetologists, skin specialists, plastic surgeons, hair expert, ophthalmologists and bariatric surgeons). These experts evaluated hospitals based on multiple parameters, including infrastructure and quality of treatment.

• A total of 2000+ interviews were conducted
• Self-recommendations by doctors were not allowed.

MODULE 3 | PATIENT EXPERIENCE

A structured questionnaire was also administered to patients and their caregivers to assess hospitals based on their experiences. This covered parameters such as hospital infrastructure and quality of treatment.

• A total of 3000+ interviews were conducted
• Self-recommendations were not allowed.

Key Evaluation Areas:

• General satisfaction with the hospital
• Recommendation of the hospital
• Satisfaction with medical care
• Satisfaction with service and organization

Module 4| Factual data collection

A detailed questionnaire was sent to hospitals to collect factual information on various parameters, including infrastructure and quality of treatment. A total of 1200 hospitals were contacted for factual data collection.

The factual data sheet focuses on the following broad information areas:

• Accreditations
• Infrastructure
  • No. of beds, Doctors, Nurses, Staff, Labs, Modern Equipment, etc.
  • Range of services/specialities (No. of departments, Telemedicine, Tele consulting, critical care)
• Quality of doctors
  • Skill, Competence, Experience, Permanent Doctors, Doctors on Panel, Foreign Collaborations, Senior Consultants
• Patient Care/ Treatment
  • Patients database management for a better understanding of the patient profile
  • Online appointments, online report availability, etc.
  • ICUs, OTs, MICUs, NICU, modern equipment available, etc.
• On campus facilities
  • Cafeteria, Health Insurance/ TPA management, Attendant facilities, Chemist (on campus pharmacy), etc.
  • Ease of payment facilities – online, credit card acceptance.
• Diagnostic facilities
  • Path labs, equipment available, user-friendly reports
• Best practices followed/ research & innovations
  • Best practices /developments/ innovations that have been introduced in the past few years
  • Ethical committee

A robust approach was followed to arrive at the final rankings. The step by step process is given below:

• Factual Score
  • The information collected corresponding to similar parameters as in the perceptual survey
  • A detailed scoring system has been developed for each parameter
  • After assigning scores to each parameter, raw scores were calculated
  • The raw scores were weighted by their importance to arrive at weighted scores
  • The final entity score was calculated as in the perception survey
• Perceptual Score
  • Ratings on various parameters for each entity.
  • Calculating the importance of various parameters to arrive at weights for each parameter – a regression model was used to arrive at the importance of various parameters.
  • Calculation of raw scores and weighted scores for each parameter.
  • Calculation of overall score for each hospital using importance weightage.
• The final score for a hospital and were a weighted average of respective hospitals Perception Score and Factual Score - equal weightage given to both.