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New standards for hospital services on the anvil
THE QUALITY OF hospital services in India will change as per new standards, specific to patient care and their rights. These standards are currently being drafted by the National Accreditation Board for Hospital and Healthcare Providers (NABH).
THE QUALITY OF hospital services in India will change as per new standards, specific to patient care and their rights.
These standards are currently being drafted by the National Accreditation Board for Hospital and Healthcare Providers (NABH).
The NABH is a constituent board of the Quality Council of India, set up to establish and operate an accreditation programme for healthcare organisations.
Chairman of the Accreditation Committee of NABH Dr YD Bhatia said that hospitals, till now, used certification of the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), which was non-specific to healthcare services. The NABH is planning to focus on quality standards for hospitals.
“Standards for hospitals are defined in all parts of the world, including Europe, Malaysia, Thailand and even Egypt, but in India we still boast of 9001 for hospitals. This is despite the fact that hospital services are entirely different from any other institute,” said Dr Bhatia, who came to attend the QCI’s sensitisation programme in the city on Sunday. The accreditation, he said, would be in three stages.
First, a hospital applies and the board scrutinises the application. Then, a one-member committee is sent to the applicant’s place to justify the application, after which a team pays a visit to see whether that hospital justifies the criteria for accreditation.
The NABH has been set up, with cooperation of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Indian Health Industry, to establish and operate accreditation for hospital and health care providers.
NABH standards for hospitals have been drafted by the Technical Committee of the NABH and contain the complete set of standards for evaluation of hospitals for grant of accreditation. The standards are equally applicable to hospitals and nursing homes in the government, as well as in the private sector.
“The standards call for continuous monitoring of events and comprehensive corrective action plan. It includes patients’ right,” said Anil Jauhri, advisor to the National Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies.
“We have already organised nine sensitisation programmes in different cities. Now, assessors will form a panel, or a team at the State level, to evaluate the claim of hospitals for accreditation,” said Dr Bhatia.
The NABH has tied up with professional bodies like the Consumer Coordination Council, office of the director general, Armed Forces, and the PGI, Chandigarh, to search evaluators and is likely to include the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Lucknow in its panel.
