5.2.3 Accreditation The commencement in 2006 of an accreditation programme for secondary and tertiary hospitals by the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH), a constituent board of the Quality Council of India, represents a strong attempt to improve the quality of healthcare establishments in the country. Accreditation is a voluntary process, involving evaluation of an organization’s compliance with pre-established performance standards. The organization is granted accreditation if it is assessed to meet an acceptable level compliance, or it may be given a conditional accreditation.
NABH has so far granted accreditation to 11 hospitals and 43 are in various stages of evaluation. It has 120 qualified assessors on its panel, comprising senior clinicians, hospital administrators and nursing supervisors, who are assigned the task of carrying out the evaluation.
An accreditation system such as what has been established in India is the best way of improving the quality of performance of clinical establishments. The challenge in the country is for more and more clinical establishments to take advantage of the accreditation system in order to improve the quality of healthcare service in the country. As for clinical establishment run by the Central and State Governments the first step should be that they adhere to the minimum standards prescribed under the proposed legislation, but as a subsequent step they should also come forward and take advantage of the accreditation system.
