From several thousand kilometres away, every hospital website looks the same: the same photographs of corridors, the same equipment lists, the same accreditation logos. Almost none of it distinguishes a good unit from an average one. A few things do.

Ask about the surgeon, not the hospital

The most useful single question is: how many of my specific operation did this named consultant perform in the last twelve months? Not how many cardiac cases the hospital does — how many isolated bypasses this surgeon did. The link between volume and outcome is one of the better-established findings in surgical research, and it operates at the surgeon and unit level, not the building level.

A good international patient department answers this in a day. One that deflects to hospital-wide statistics is telling you something.

What accreditation does and does not tell you

NABH is India's national hospital accreditation; JCI is the international equivalent that some larger hospitals also hold. Both are genuine and worth having — they mean documented protocols, infection control, and audited processes. Neither measures how good your surgeon is. Treat accreditation as a floor to insist on, not as the basis for choosing between two accredited hospitals.

The questions that separate units

• Intensivist cover. Is the ICU staffed by dedicated intensivists around the clock, or covered by the surgical team? This matters more than the bed count.
• Specific capability. Does the unit routinely do awake craniotomy and neuromonitoring, if that is what your tumour needs? Does it run ABO-incompatible transplants? Capability claims should be answered with numbers.
• What happens if it goes wrong. Is there 24-hour interventional radiology? Can they do dialysis on the ICU? These are the services that matter on the bad day.
• Rehabilitation in-house. For joints, spine and neuro, whether physiotherapy is in the same building changes the result. See joint replacement.
• Infection rates. Ask for the unit's surgical site infection rate. Few patients ask; good units know the number.

Signals worth ignoring

Photographs of lobbies and room categories. Equipment brand names presented as achievements — an iMRI in a unit that rarely uses it means less than a surgeon who does your operation weekly. Testimonial videos. And any "success rate" quoted as a single hospital-wide percentage, which as our cancer treatment page explains cannot be meaningful across different diseases and stages.

Location has practical consequences

Delhi NCR, Chennai, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad all have strong tertiary hospitals. What differs is the practical stuff: direct flight connections from your country, summer heat if you will be recovering for weeks, the cost of accommodation nearby, and whether there is a community from your country nearby — which matters more than people expect over a three-month transplant stay.

Talk to a patient

Ask the hospital to connect you with a previous international patient from your country who had the same procedure. Some will, some cannot for privacy reasons, but the willingness itself is informative. A ten-minute conversation with someone who has done exactly what you are about to do is worth more than any brochure.

Once you have narrowed to two, put both quotes side by side using our guide to reading a hospital quote — and compare on inclusions, not on the headline number.