A recent study has found that private hospitals in India contribute very little to medical research despite providing care to nearly 60% of the country’s patients. The analysis, published in the latest edition of the Journal of Medical Evidence, part of the BMJ Group, examined research publications produced by Indian hospitals between January 2021 and December 2025. The study was conducted by Dr. Samiran Nundy and Dr. Parmanand Tiwari of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, New Delhi.
Researchers assessed publications indexed in Scopus, PubMed and Google Scholar. The findings showed that the top 50 private hospitals in India without affiliated medical colleges published an average of 242 research papers during the five-year period. In contrast, the top 50 hospitals attached to medical colleges recorded an average of 1,530 publications. Among them, AIIMS, New Delhi, led with 6,932 papers, followed by CMC, Vellore, with 5,333 publications.
The study also highlighted India’s gap with leading global institutions. The top 10 medical colleges in China produced an average of more than 16,000 publications, led by Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine and Peking University Health Science Centre. In the United States, the top institutions averaged nearly 14,500 papers, with Harvard University and Johns Hopkins University among the leaders. In the United Kingdom, the top medical schools averaged around 13,500 publications, headed by the University of Oxford Medical Sciences Division and University College London Medical School.
The researchers noted that the Mayo Clinic in the United States alone publishes around 8,000 research papers every year more than the combined annual output of India’s private hospital sector. They suggested that since much of India’s healthcare system is dominated by corporate-run private hospitals focused primarily on profitability, research and education often receive limited attention.
According to the study, despite treating a majority of the country’s patients, doctors working in private hospitals undertake minimal research. The authors pointed out that valuable clinical data generated from millions of Indian patients remains largely underutilised. They attributed this to factors such as inadequate incentives for clinicians, lack of robust electronic infrastructure, and institutional priorities that are largely commercial in nature.
The study further observed that while India ranks fourth globally in terms of the number of research publications, behind the United States, China and the United Kingdom, its standing falls to ninth when research quality and impact are considered. This indicates that a significant proportion of Indian studies receive fewer citations and have limited influence on international medical literature.