ACCREDITATION FOR HOSPITALS – NABH

V. VIDHYA, Asst.Professor, SIMS

In recent times demand for quality for health care services have risen up due to forces like Insurance, Corporate growth, Competition and Medical tourism. As a result of these forces the expectations of the consumers has also been risen up for quality services especially for healthcare related services. This situation has led to the introduction of National and International bodies to introduce the Quality assurance mechanism and various certifications to fulfill the expectations of the consumers.

NABH – National Accreditation Board of Hospitals is the recognized national and international accreditation body that will give certificate for the hospital based on the peer assessment review. It’s actually a self-assessment and external peer review based on the performance of the healthcare organization in relation to established standards. NABH was established to conduct accreditation programmes with the objective to enhance the quality service, to promote continuous quality improvement and patient safety.

NABH was formed on 2005 and it is accredited by ISQua (International Society for Quality Assurance in Healthcare). There are 10 chapters in the NABH asssement , where the healthcare organisations opting to get NABH accreditation should satisfy the standards mentioned in these 10 chapters. The chapters are basically deals with the patient safety and quality of delivery of the services by the healthcare providers

Ten chapters are

1. Access, Assessment and Continuity of Care (AAC)
2. Care of Patients (COP)
3. Management of Medication (MOM)
4. Patient Rights and Education (PRE)
5. Hospital Infection Control (HIC)
6. Patient Safety and Quality Improvement (PSQ)
7. Responsibilities of Management (ROM)
8. Facilities Management and Safety (FMS)
9. Human Resource Management (HRM)
10. Information Management System (IMS)patients

The NABH is a part of QCI Quality council of India. The healthcare oranisations that fulfil the following criteria will be eligible for applying NABH Certifications.

1. Currently the healthcare organization should be running successfully with the minimum of bed capacity should be above 50.
2. The healthcare providers should comply with the standards of NABH
3. The standards should be used by the organization as a whole and not for a specific department. The standards are applicable to both public and private hospitals

The hospitals can abide the rules and regulations given by the NABH and can renew their accreditation certification also once they are been accredited.

The accreditation is a transparent system of control over the accredited hospital which gives assurance that hospital will constantly fulfill the accreditation criteria. The on-site survey of the hospital and staff by the experienced accreditation assessment team encourages them to establish educational and performance improvement goals. The best part is that it gives the opportunity to the patients to give a feedback on the services they availed during their stay in the hospital and also to complain if they were dissatisfied. Finally it ensures that hospitals, whether public or private, national or international, play there expected roles in national health system.