Our sourcing principles
- Primary sources first. We prefer the source closest to the fact: a hospital's own doctor page over a third-party listing, a clinical guideline over a news article.
- Every fact carries its source. A fact without a source we can cite is not published.
- Dated, not timeless. Each source is recorded with the date we accessed it, so you can judge how current it is.
- Gaps are shown as gaps. If a hospital does not publish a doctor's fee, we do not estimate one.
This page covers where information comes from. The checks we run on it, and what the Verified badge means, are described in our verification methodology.
Where provider facts come from
Profiles of doctors, hospitals, clinics, AYUSH centres and diagnostic labs in Lucknow and Delhi NCR are built from these sources, in this order of preference:
1. Official hospital websites and doctor profiles
The main source for doctor profiles is the individual doctor page published by the hospital where they practise, for example a consultant's page on a hospital's "Find a Doctor" section. From it we take designation, department, qualifications, years of experience, conditions treated, procedures and OPD timings, as the hospital publishes them. Hospital facts such as departments, bed capacity, emergency services, address and main phone number come from the hospital's own about, department, contact and quality pages.
2. Public hospital rosters and faculty lists
Many hospitals publish a roster of their doctors by department. We use these to confirm that a doctor is currently attached to the hospital and in which specialty. For teaching institutions, we also use the faculty details those institutions publish publicly, for instance in their National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) disclosures, to confirm designation and qualifications.
3. Provider-submitted updates
Doctors and facilities can ask us to correct or add information. Submitted information is published only after it is checked against evidence, such as the hospital's official page or a certificate, under our corrections and provider update process. A fact confirmed this way is recorded as provider-supplied, so readers can see its origin.
4. BioTB verification
Our team, assisted by automated tools, extracts facts from these sources and re-checks each one against the exact wording on the source page before it is accepted. Profiles flagged by automated checks, and a sample of all new profiles, are reviewed by a person before publication. When collecting from hospital websites we respect each site's published crawling rules and limit how often we request pages.
5. Maps
Map coordinates for facilities come from OpenStreetMap and are used only to place a hospital on the map and to show distance. The address shown on the profile comes from the hospital itself.
How each fact is recorded
For every source behind a profile, we store:
- the type of source, such as an official hospital website or a provider-submitted update;
- a label and, where public, the link to the exact page;
- the date we accessed it;
- which fields it confirmed, for example qualifications, designation, experience or OPD timings.
These appear on each profile as its sources, so you can open the hospital page yourself. The same facts feed the TrustScore™ ranking index: the profile completeness signal reflects how many fields are on record from a cited source, and how recently the profile was reviewed.
Accreditation data (NABH, NABL, JCI)
Hospital and laboratory accreditations are among the most important facts on a profile, and among the easiest to overstate. We record three accreditations:
- NABH (National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers) for hospitals and healthcare facilities;
- NABL (National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories) for diagnostic and hospital laboratories;
- JCI (Joint Commission International) for hospitals accredited to its international standards.
An accreditation is shown only with its source, normally the hospital's own accreditation or quality page, and we aim to cross-check it against the accrediting body's public records. Accreditations apply to a specific facility or laboratory, not to a whole hospital group, so a NABH-accredited flagship hospital does not make every branch of the same group accredited on BioTB. If an accreditation lapses or cannot be confirmed, it is removed from the profile.
Sources for condition guides
Our condition guides are written from recognised clinical evidence, in this order of preference:
- Indian national guidance, including ICMR guidelines and national health programme protocols, because they reflect how care is organised and which medicines are available in India.
- International guidance from the WHO and from major specialty society guidelines, such as those for cardiology, stroke, respiratory disease and dermatology.
- Systematic reviews, including Cochrane reviews, where a question has been studied across many trials.
- Peer-reviewed literature, preferring large, well-designed studies, for questions that guidelines do not yet cover.
For AYUSH and integrative content, we use recognised pharmacopoeial and research references and state clearly where evidence is limited or where safety concerns, such as herb-drug interactions, exist. How guides are written, reviewed and updated is set out in our editorial policy.
Citation standards
Every condition guide on BioTB records and shows:
- the clinical guideline it is benchmarked against, named in full;
- the evidence level for its main recommendations, where the guideline grades them;
- a source for each answer in its frequently asked questions;
- who reviewed it on behalf of the Medical Advisory Board, and when.
We cite the guideline or paper itself, not a news story or another website summarising it. When a guideline is updated, the guide is re-checked against the new version at its next review, or sooner if the change affects safety.
Freshness and last-verified dates
Every provider profile shows a last-verified date: the most recent date on which any of its facts was re-checked against its source. Every condition guide and policy page shows the date it was last reviewed.
- We aim to re-check every provider profile at least once a year, and more often for fields that change frequently, such as OPD timings and fees.
- When a patient or provider reports a change, the profile is re-checked under our corrections policy, whatever its scheduled date.
- Condition guides are reviewed on a regular cycle and whenever a guideline they depend on changes.
A recent date tells you we checked recently; it does not guarantee nothing has changed since. Our medical disclaimer explains why you should confirm timings and fees with the provider before you visit.
What we do not use
- Star ratings or reviews copied from other websites, apps or map listings. Reviews on BioTB come only from our own prescription-verified review process.
- Unsourced third-party listings that do not show where their information came from.
- Paid data or paid placement. No provider can pay to add facts to its profile or to improve its score.
- Doctors' private personal details, such as date of birth, home address or personal phone numbers.
- Patient health data to build or rank provider profiles. Documents uploaded to verify reviews are used only for that purpose.
- Marketing claims without evidence, such as "best surgeon in the city" or unsupported success rates, even when they appear on a provider's own website.
Questions about a source
If a source on BioTB looks out of date, does not support the fact it is cited for, or you know of a better primary source, write to clinical-editorial@biotb.com with the page link and the source you recommend. We treat these reports as corrections and handle them on the timelines in our corrections policy.