Indian hospitals deal with over 950 compliances in a year: Report

New Delhi: Hospitals in India face over 950 compliance issues in a year, according to a report on Tuesday.

The report by TeamLease Regtech, a regulatory technology (Regtech) solutions company, presents a peak into the complexities that have plagued the hospitals in the country.

The report noted that a typical single-entity 50-bed hospital with a diagnostic centre, radiology, pathology lab, and pharmacy with a corporate office in a single state needs to deal with 623 unique compliances.

Of these, 421 (67.5 per cent) are at the union level, 192 (31 per cent) are at the state level, and 10 (1.5 per cent) are at the municipal level.

These compliances include at least 53 different types of licences, permissions, and registrations, the report said.

“The healthcare sector is a critical part of our daily lives with over a billion consultations performed every year across the country. The sector employs about 8 million people and the demand for healthcare professionals is expected to double by the end of the decade,” said Rishi Agrawal, CEO, TeamLease RegTech.

The sector needs to expand and grow significantly to cater to the growing population.

“The country will have over 158 million people (15 per cent of the population) over the age of 65 by 2035. However, the complexities of compliance have restrained growth,” he added.

Agrawal noted that “even a small hospital needs to deal with at least 967 instances of compliance every year”.

“Without proper processes in place to ensure smooth compliance functioning, senior management cannot help but deal with the aftermath of ad-hoc, manual compliance operations. Transforming compliance operations by leveraging digital compliance solutions is the need of the hour. This report explores the underlying complexities that affect employer compliance in hospitals,” he said.

The report reveals that a hospital must obtain 100 licences across Union, state, municipal and local levels. Labour compliances account for about 31 per cent, while industry-specific obligations make up more than 27 per cent of the unique obligations.