A recent self-assessment conducted by the Indian government reveals that nearly 80% of public health facilities in India fall short of the minimum essential standards for infrastructure, manpower, equipment, and other benchmarks set by the government.
This assessment involved public health facilities under the National Health Mission (NHM), including district hospitals, sub-district hospitals, community health centers, primary health centers, and Ayushman Arogya Mandir (formerly sub-health centers). Out of more than 200,000 facilities, 40,451 provided key statistics using the Open Data Kit, a digital tool developed by the health ministry.
The results showed that only 8,089 facilities, approximately 20%, scored 80% or higher, qualifying them as compliant with the Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS). These compliant facilities had the necessary infrastructure, human resources, drugs, diagnostics, and equipment to provide essential services. Conversely, 17,190 facilities (42%) scored less than 50%, while 15,172 facilities scored between 50% and 80%.
A senior health ministry official stated that this self-assessment and its real-time monitoring aim to ensure that health facilities maintain the required standards, leading to better health outcomes and a more equitable society. The government plans to make 70,000 health institutions IPHS compliant within the first 100 days of the new government’s formation.
The primary goal of the self-assessment is to identify gaps and encourage states and union territories to address them with full support from the central government, thereby improving the quality of public health services. Following the self-assessment, the government also intends to conduct surprise inspections to verify the accuracy of the health facilities’ claims against the IPHS benchmarks.
As reported by The Economic Times, health facilities are also evaluated under the National Quality Assurance Standards (NQAS), which assess best practices such as the availability of essential medicines, equipment, waste management, infection control, support services, and patient rights. While NQAS assessments for larger facilities will continue to be conducted physically, a new provision for virtual assessments has been introduced for Ayushman Arogya Mandir, which comprises the largest number of public health facilities under NHM.