In the Indian Health system, unlike the secondary healthcare, the tertiary healthcare in India lacks standards for service provision. The Labs for Life project set out to develop a set of guidelines for medical colleges through two consultation meetings with various stakeholders, such as Directors of Medical Education, State Health Officials, Principals of Government Medical Colleges, MCI representatives, CDC representatives, FIND officials, BD representatives, NHM Officials and Directorate General of Health Services representatives. These consultations resulted in the development of this guideline for Government Medical Colleges with 15 specific areas, including tests, equipment, human resources, quality management, laboratory monitoring mechanism, unsupervised lab and tests, sample collection, infection control, antimicrobial resistance, inventory management, resources allocation, IT and LIS, communication, documentation, and sample referral system.

India’s Public Health System has been developed over the years as a 3-tier system, namely primary, secondary and tertiary level of health care. Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS) for the District Hospitals fulfill the needs of secondary level of healthcare providing curative, preventive and promotive healthcare services to the people in the district. This document contains the Standards set for 101-200 bedded hospital at district level.

These guidelines provide details for essential diagnostics packages tailored to various levels of care, equipment and model tender documents. These are intended to provide states with a broad framework on implementing National Free Essential Diagnostics Service initiative so as to ensure the availability of basic diagnostics tests for service users in public health facilities. The guidelines suggest alternative models supported by innovative technologies which states can adopt based on local context