National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Accreditation System for healthcare sector in India: An overview

Abstract

Quality and standards of services in healthcare have become essential for the current generation of healthcare providers and beneficiaries, that is, patients. Healthcare accreditation has become the most important tool for improving the standard of the hospitals and thereafter benchmarking. Most hospitals and healthcare providers are differentiated and evaluated according to their organizational performance and quality. National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH) is an integral board of the Quality Council of India (QCI), which has been established to operate an accreditation program for healthcare organizations/institutions globally. Accreditation is a public recognition awarded to healthcare organizations that fulfill the standards laid by NABH through an independent external assessment, conducted by a qualified team of assessors. In India, healthcare organizations face a lot of burden on the number of patients. However, it is important to have a keen quality and standards of services to such a huge number of patients without compromise. NABH helps with its standards controlling the standard of care and services by the health industry in different areas. There is a constant need that many such organizations are motivated to undergo an accreditation process to have uniformity in the standard of services worldwide as it is a voluntary act in India.

Keywords

• accreditation
• assessment
• quality
• standards