With very few qualified consultants in hospital design, the healthcare construction segment is highly fragmented and is yet to meet the expectations of the market. In a recent poll conducted by ConstructionBiz360, a whopping 100% voters felt that the healthcare construction industry in India has miles to go.
In a mail response to the e-journal, Dr Vivek Desai’s, MD at Hosmac India Pvt Ltd wrote, “Healthcare buildings are engineering intensive and thereby complex in terms of their planning and execution. It requires detailed planning and co-ordination of various agencies to make it a functionally sound building which is cost effective as well as economical in operations. In India, we are still far away from recognizing this fact, but the silver lining is that larger hospital groups have begun to take cognizance of this fact and are imbibing good engineering standards.” Hosmac India is a reputed hospital planning and management consulting firm headquartered in Mumbai.
Present scenario – Healthcare construction
The healthcare construction industry is suffering from acute shortage of qualified consultants. Speaking on this key issue, Sukumar Hebbar, chief architect and business development head (Hospitals) at Larsen & Toubro Ltd-ECC Division wrote, “Hospital planning and designing is quite complicated as it involves very intricate MEP[i] services. Unfortunately, India does not have many skilled design architects in healthcare industry. To make matter worse, designers with hardly any medical planning background are seen working on healthcare projects, leading to cost overruns, project delays and poor product quality for the clients.”
“International consultants associated with hospital design are making inroads in India, however space-planning requirements here are different from global standards. The true success of any healthcare contract lies in the timely delivery of the project at the pre-determined costs with international standard design and execution,” added Mr Hebbar.
Well-designed hospital - Requirements
The master planning, zoning and interconnectivity between various departments is critical for the success of any hospital. A good/standard hospital building should have separate access for patients, staff, visitors and equipment/material. Further, a well-designed hospital should ideally have a service road with an entry/exit for materials and staff separately from the rear side. Critical clinical zones such as operation theatres, ICU etc should be detailed with micro-planning details to ensure all MEP requirements, medical and general furniture are well coordinated.
In case of hospital development, bio-medical engineers also play a big role besides MEP service engineers. Air conditioners should be designed in such way that it ensures total elimination of secondary-level of infection, which is generally spread within the hospital premises. Overall, these give clients their value for money, as he gets quality product on time and that too without any hassles.
Going ahead, the healthcare construction segment will have to pace up to meet the huge demand rising from population spurt. Studies indicate that around 2.6 million additional hospital beds will be required in the next 10 years, translating to an average annual demand of 260,000 beds.
Jeeta Bandopadhyay
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Pegged at Rs 2,50,000-crore, the Indian healthcare industry is experiencing robust growth of around 16% in recent times. Experts and analysts opine that the industry is expected to grow further and emerge as one of the driving forces of the national economy in the years to come. Despite such bright prospects, the industry might fall short of expectations. The reason being lack of standard hospital buildings in the country. 
