India will need to skill approximately 1.25 million healthcare professionals every year in digital health and artificial intelligence (AI) to prepare its healthcare workforce for the demands of an increasingly technology-driven health system, according to a new FICCI-KPMG in India knowledge paper.

 

Released at the 20th edition of FICCI HEAL, the report, titled “Skilling India’s healthcare workforce for digital health and AI”, warns that expanding the number of healthcare professionals alone will not be enough. India must urgently strengthen digital capabilities, AI readiness and workforce productivity to keep pace with the rapid transformation of healthcare delivery.

 

The report estimates that India currently has approximately 9.01 million registered healthcare professionals. However, the sector continues to grapple with challenges involving workforce availability, uneven distribution, specialisation and digital readiness.

 

It calls for a fundamental shift in workforce planning — from addressing a traditional “capacity and numbers” challenge to embracing a broader “capacity + capability + productivity” agenda, with digital health and AI skills at its core.

 

Lalit Mistry, Partner and Co-head, Healthcare, KPMG in India said, “By 2035, India’s healthcare workforce imperative may extend beyond expanding workforce capacity to ensuring that healthcare professionals are equipped to thrive in an AI-enabled, and digitally connected health system. India’s healthcare sector would need to skill ~1.25 million professionals annually in Digital Health & AI to build workforce readiness at scale. Sustained through 2035, this effort could enable a significant share of the healthcare workforce to become future-ready.”

 

The knowledge paper identifies five major forces driving the transformation of healthcare workforce requirements:

 

* Evolving regulatory requirements.

* Emergence of new-age healthcare delivery models.

* Changing consumer expectations and patient needs.

* Accelerating digitisation to improve operational efficiency.

* Expansion of technology-enabled healthcare infrastructure.

 

To address these changes, the report proposes an indicative National Digital Health and AI Competency Framework (NDH-AICF), built around a three-tier workforce architecture.

 

The framework envisages a Digitally Enabled Care Workforce, an AI-Augmented Clinical and Operational Workforce, and Specialist Digital Health & AI Cadres.

 

The scale of the transformation is expected to be significant. By 2035, India's healthcare ecosystem could see the emergence of more than 20 new digital health and AI-enabled roles. These would span clinical informatics, health data science, AI validation, data privacy, cybersecurity, interoperability and digital operations.

 

The report stresses that technology adoption alone will not deliver meaningful transformation in healthcare. The real challenge lies in ensuring that healthcare professionals can use digital tools and AI responsibly, ethically and effectively to improve productivity and patient outcomes.

 

It calls for sustained collaboration between governments, regulators, healthcare providers, academic institutions and industry to accelerate workforce skilling and build a resilient, digitally empowered healthcare ecosystem.

 

With digital health and AI increasingly shaping the future of medical care, the report positions workforce transformation as a critical priority for India — not just to meet its domestic healthcare needs, but also to strengthen its position as a global leader in technology-enabled healthcare delivery.