Now patients will be able to rate top hospitals and doctors

Patients at hospitals across India will soon be able to influence the hospital's star rating with their feedback on the quality of services.

Starting September 2016, patients at AIIMS, PGI Chandigarh, Ram Mohan Lohia Hospital and NIMHANS will be able to access a portal where they can give feedback on the quality of services provided by the hospitals.

The health ministry is all set to unveil an information technology called Patient Satisfaction System (PSS), which will be launched by Health Minister J P Nadda on 29 August.

In its pilot phase, the PSS will cover 54 central and state-run hospitals, including 30 hospitals in Rajasthan and several district hospitals in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.

These hospitals, which already have a functional centralised hospital management system, will use record patient feedback through a web portal, SMS service and interactive voice response system (IVRS).

Patients will be contacted after their file is closed and those admitted will be contacted at the time of discharge. Feedback will be collected from more than 1,00,000 patients per day, the Indian Express reported.

Ratings will be based on service quality, infrastructure, availability of drugs and other criteria. This feedback will be used to determine star ratings to government health facilities, senior officials in the Ministry of Health said.

The information, aimed at improving level of services at government hospitals, will be made public. The ministry also aims to cover all central government and district-level hospitals by the end of the year.