The Hindu Business Line : 16 hospitals seek accreditation

The year-old national accreditation body for hospitals says it has got into the act with applications from 16 healthcare majors from across the country and many more to come.

The standards were finalised in February this year. "There is so much enthusiasm from hospitals" and the first Indian voluntary accreditations may be a few months away, said Mr Girdhar Gyani, CEO of the autonomous National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers, set up under the Quality Council of India (QCI).

Among those lined up are Narayana Hrudayalaya of Bangalore; Kasturba Hospital, Manipal; Escorts Heart Institute & Research Centre, New Delhi; B.M.Birla Hospital and three others in Kolkata; Bombay Hospital; Medwin Hospital in Hyderabad and the Dharamshila cancer institute, Delhi.

Factors like health insurance, patient rights and medical tourism have fuelled a big demand for hospital accreditation. "We want India to emerge as a global healthcare delivery system just as our IT industry is today," said Mr Somnath Das, Co-chair of the Accreditation Committee.

Raising service bar

Set up in April 2005, NABH is sprearheading an Indian drive to raise the service bar in the 20,000 hospitals. Until now, in the absence of a single national standard, individual hospitals have subscribed to norms of different overseas agencies.

NABH would offer equally high, fair and affordable benchmarks to Indian hospitals, they told a news conference here on Monday.

MoU with Australian body

NABH signed an MoU in July with the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards to adopt the Australian framework in its agenda. It will draw from the 30-year experience of the Australian body and get its assistance to train Indian assessors.

The tie-up will speed up the growth of NABH, which has also applied for the approval of the International Society for Quality in Healthcare, Mr Gyani, who is also the QCI Secretary-General, said.