Choosing the right hospital is important for receiving the best medical care; and more so, finding the best hospital requires careful consideration of a number of factors.
In emergency medical or surgical cases, the only factors you will likely consider in choosing a hospital will be proximity, expertise, and cost. You do not have time to search for and select the best hospitals. However, when you are more relaxed, in medical conditions that are not immediately life-threatening, you can carefully choose which hospital is best for your health care needs.
Also, this guide will help you choose your best hospital well ahead of time, before any health emergency, with a special focus on Ahmedabad, India. In recent times, India has become a first port of call as alternative places to seek medical care, by most developing countries of the world because of their exceptional expertise and their desire to deliver the best health care and nothing less.
Ahmedabad is one of the most prominent cities in Gujarat, India that has grossly developed infrastructure to meet the needs of all people at all levels of society. This is in line with the SDG-3 declaration of “ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing for all at all ages”. But still, there are still the best of the best hospitals you need to be able to find.
Since the honorable Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, was elected as the Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2001, Gujarat has evolved so much into becoming one of the best Indian states in areas of education, health care, infrastructural development, etc.
Ahmedabad was the first capital of India before it was then changed to the city of Gandhinagar but Ahmedabad has not stopped being excellent in many areas including health care. There are several leading hospitals offering medical care for any medical condition but finding the top hospital in Ahmedabad will require you to know about these criteria as you will see in this article.
For most other countries and states of the world, these same criteria will still be relevant for finding the best hospitals that meet your health needs effectively and efficiently.
6 Tips To Consider In Choosing The Best Hospital
Here, you will see five most important factors you must consider in choosing the best hospital, especially in the Indian city of Ahmedabad.
1. Availability of Basic Amenities
Basic amenities in a hospital setting include easy transport routes, lodging and accommodation services/hotels, safe food vendors, pharmacy shops, ATM and banking services, etc. These essential services are very important to look out for because they can affect your access to health care services in the hospital, as well as reduce your stress as much as possible.
When choosing the best hospital, you should consider the presence or absence of these basic amenities before selection. Most reputable hospitals make sure to get equipped with these amenities.
2. Health Insurance Concerns
One of the best solutions to the problem of health care funding is health insurance. Studies have shown that health care coverage is poor in areas of the world where out-of-pocket payment for health services is predominant. Thus, the introduction of health insurance as an alternate and preferred method of funding for health care services.
Now, almost everyone is beginning to subscribe for insurance plans in their country to deal with medical payments. If you already have health insurance, you may want to consider looking for a hospital that accepts your insurance scheme beforehand to avoid financial problems while receiving health care. Follow same precaution when looking for a top medical organization for treatment in Ahmedabad.
3. Presence of Experienced Professionals/Doctors
Even though every hospital has good doctors with adequate medical qualifications, the best hospitals have so much more. As doctors advance further in the practice of medicine, certain knowledge and expertise come to them through experience.
It is very crucial that you test the average qualifications and experience of the doctors in a facility to be able to determine the average expertise of that hospital. The more the number of experienced doctors, the better the quality of health care you receive. Hence, you must be deliberate about accessing this parameter in your choice of the best hospital.
4. Patients’ Experience/Ratings
One of the best indicators of the quality of health care received in a medical facility is the response of patients concerning the care given and received. Most of these reviews will be through word-of-mouth and when patients talk about their experience in a hospital, they consider everything from the staff (doctors, nurses and auxilliary workers), road access, delay or promptness of delivering health care serivices and other parameters also discussed in this post.
To find the best hospital, you should consider getting patients’ feedbacks and reviews about the quality of health care they received in different facilities. By the way, there are some review websites that may help you get patients’ responses about their experience.
5. Available of Hi-tech Equipment and Labs
The world of medicine has advanced significantly in relation to what it was a few years ago. Medical equipments to aid diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions, as well as for surgical operations, have become available in the world’s top hospitals. However, many hospitals are still far behind in areas of medical technology and laboratory.
Whereas, we cannot say every medical institution should have all hi-tech equipments and lab tools (as they can be very expensive to purchase), there are some minimum technology you should look out for in choosing your best hospital. These includes digital patient vital signs monitors, ergonomic patient beds, radio-diagnostic equipment like x-ray, CT-Scan and/or MRI, life support equipment, etc.
6. Keeping Abreast With New Research
As much as every top-notch hospital should stay updated in terms of infrastructure, hi-tech equipment and laboratory, they should also show that they are abreast with current research and development. The health workers should also be involved in research whose results can improve the health care service delivery in that hospital and even worldwide.
You may not be able to easily access how up-to-date a facility is but it does definitely reflects in their results within the shortest possible time. Also, there are online tools and websites that can help you rank hospitals based on these parameters so you can choose the best.
Conclusion
Choosing the best hospital is not so much an easy task but the tips in this article should help make that easier for you.
India, and more specifically, Ahmedabad has seen tremendous growth and development in many areas including health care. Thousands of patients from various other cities, states and even other countries have expressed patronage and trust in medical care offered by India/Ahmedabad. However, it is still very important to carefully select the best hospital to visit in this location.
The six criteria discussed in this article will help you make an informed decision on the best hospital to visit anywhere in the world, as well as in Ahmedabad, India.
