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A study that looked at the maze of compliances facing hospitals in India has called for streamlining them.
The study guides hospitals on ways to stay on the right side of law, says Rishi Agrawal, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Teamlease Regtech, the company behind the study, which also highlights the rising corporatisation of the healthcare segment.
“The regulatory landscape for hospitals in India is complex, involving numerous central and state-level regulations,” says the report. There are 623 compliances for a 50-bed hospital, and those are just the unique ones, Agrawal told businessline. The compliances add up as the number of hospitals increase in a network, or monthly and other compliances come into the picture, he adds.
“Hospitals must navigate a labyrinth of 35 one-time registrations and approvals and numerous ongoing compliances across seven categories: labour, finance and taxation, environment health and safety (EHS), secretarial, commercial, industry-specific, and general. Further compliance requirements include over 98 certificates, licences, permissions, and approvals under various acts. Fire Safety compliances are also an important concern for hospitals and require adherence to National Building Code (NBC) standards and NABH recommendations,” the study said.
There are laws that cover the use of alcohol-based spirit, radiation equipment, and so on, he says, adding these can be streamlined to improve compliance. “We are not saying remove compliances, but are calling for rationalisation,” says Agrawal, who also questions whether some of the old laws were relevant “in 21st century India”.
The Indian healthcare sector was valued at $372 billion in 2023, and projected to reach $638 billion by 2025, the study said. Factors driving growth include the medical tourism segment, valued at over $7 billion and expected to double by 2029, and the expanding e-health market, projected to reach $10.6 billion by 2025, it added.
“The sector employs 7.5 million people, and the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is anticipated to create 3 million new jobs by 2028,” the study said.
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