Top Hospitals & Clinics in India for 2019: Research Methodology

The objective of this research was to arrive at a list of Top Hospitals & Clinics in India for 2019. The specialities that were included in the research were Orthopedic, Dentistry, Diabetology, Skin & Dermatology, Plastic Surgery, Hair (Trichology), Ophthalmology and Bariatrics. The research had 3 major modules i.e. Desk Research, Factual survey & Perceptual Rating survey followed by scientifically developed analysis & ranking process. Fieldwork was started in the mid of July 2019 and was completed in September 2019.

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| 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

Module 3 | Perceptual Survey

In the perceptual survey module for Top Hospitals/ Clinics, a structured questionnaire was administered to selected respondents including GPs/ CPs, Specialists (Orthopedic surgeon, dentists, Diabetologists, skin specialists, plastic surgeons, hair expert, ophthalmologists and bariatric surgeons). The experience/ perceptions of patients & their caregivers with hospitals are equally important. Hence the patient’s perspective was included in the survey. 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.

Analysis & Final ranking of Hospitals

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.

Some caveats/assumptions:

• Government or partly Govt. funded, a Not for profit, and Charitable trust funded hospitals like AIIMS, CMC, Adyar Cancer Institute, TATA Memorial Hospital, Basavatarakam Indo American Cancer Hospital & Research Institute, Kanchi Kamakoti Childs Trust Hospital, Madras Medical Mission, The Gujarat Cancer & Research Institute etc. were not included in the ranking, considering them as a different league of hospitals due to their legacy, huge infrastructure, sheer size of procedures performed at highly subsidized treatment cost, etc. They are not directly comparable with other hospitals, thus have limited this survey to private/ corporate tie-up hospitals.
• Best efforts were made to reach maximum hospitals across specialities; however, any hospital that did not send complete “Fact-Sheet” within the allotted time was assigned an average Factual score for calculating their overall ranking.
• Any entity which expressly stated that it did not wish to participate in the survey was excluded from the survey.
• As a rule, there’s not an emerging category, but only in few locations where emerging is shown, hospitals/clinics established in 2017 and onwards have been shown in the emerging category. In all other cases, they are a part of the main rankings.
• In a few specialities, a list of chain hospitals/ clinics is shown.

Note: Present survey has been exclusively conducted by an independent Research Agency named i3RC Insights Pvt. Ltd. (i3RC) using the stated methodology for arriving at given rankings. The publication house and its affiliates/employees/authorized representatives/group companies are not responsible/ liable for the rankings. Readers are advised to take an informed decision before acting upon the survey rankings.

About i3rc Insights

i3rc Insights Pvt. Ltd. (i3RC) is a boutique research & consultancy firm that is focused on offering Superior Client Service, Strategic Insights, Innovation, Quality & Commitment. i3RC has a young and dynamic team of researchers who are very passionate about their work and are always willing to put that extra effort to make every project a great success. In addition, i3RC has a team of highly experienced industry experts as consultants who provide their expertise for specific projects. i3RC is a full member of MRSI and follow MRSI code of ethics while conducting every research project. Given their commitment to quality, i3RC has developed a 3 tier and multi-stage quality control system to deliver excellent quality.