Across India, families are discovering a simple truth that our hospitals have always known. Recovery does not belong only to the ICU or the ward. It often continues in familiar spaces where people feel safe, supported and seen. Every day, patients ask their physicians the same question: “When can I go home?” This longing carries emotional comfort and clinical wisdom.
Healing gathers strength when people return to their own rhythms and are surrounded by those who give them courage. Yet, conventionally, our health system treated the home as the place where medical care ends. The traditional model assumed that care was confined to hospital walls.
India faces a steady rise in non-communicable diseases, a rapidly ageing population, and increasing pressure on hospital capacity. Responding to this reality requires us to recognise the home as a vital part of the continuum of care.
The scale of this need is significant. Each year, over three per cent of India’s population is hospitalised. Nearly one-fifth of these patients require continuity of care beyond discharge for safe recovery. Yet, less than one per cent receives structured, formal home-based care. This gap between need and access represents not only a clinical risk, but also a systemic inefficiency that health care policy can no longer overlook.
Many health care needs can now be managed safely at home through structured oversight, trained professionals and dependable digital systems. This shift is already visible across the patient journey—from home sample collection to specialised physiotherapy sessions, doctor visits at home, and post-surgical rehabilitation.
Even patients with acute and chronic illnesses often recover better when supported at home through monitoring, nursing and medical supervision. Families experience less strain. Patients sleep better and regain strength with greater confidence. Hospitals, in turn, can focus more effectively on high-acuity care. Most important, overall health care delivery costs come down, making care more accessible and affordable while improving clinical outcomes.
Despite these advantages, India’s home health care ecosystem remains largely fragmented. While the domestic homecare market is among the fastest-growing health care segments, only about two per cent of it is organised. The absence of uniform standards, accreditation pathways and regulatory oversight bears the risk of uneven quality at precisely the moment when demand is accelerating.
Across the developed world, health systems have embraced home-based care as a core part of service delivery, as digital innovation has changed what is possible. Remote monitoring, electronic medical records, clinical decision engines and virtual consultations now allow specialists to remain connected with patients regardless of geography. A living room can become a safe extension of a step-down unit when supported by trained nurses and intelligent systems. Families no longer feel alone once discharge papers are signed. They remain connected to care teams who understand their journey and respond quickly to change.
This transformation has brought new clarity to our mission, and Apollo’s Homecare offering has carried this principle into millions of homes. Over more than a decade, it has supported over 10 lakh patients, delivered outcomes aligned with global benchmarks, and demonstrated that structured pathways can achieve consistently low re-admissions and stronger recovery. Each nurse, therapist and clinician who enters a home carries Apollo’s values of dignity, compassion, and excellence into the heart of a family, supported by a proprietary technology backbone.
As India advances toward value-based care and universal health coverage, home health care offers a powerful convergence of affordability, outcomes and patient dignity. The future of Indian health care will not be defined only by hospitals and technology, but by our ability to extend trust, compassion and clinical excellence beyond institutional walls. Hence, strengthening home health care today allows recovery to continue where patients are at ease and supported, transforming the home into a place where healing is not merely supervised, but deeply sustained.
Dr Preetha Reddy is Executive Vice Chairperson of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited.