Healthcare accreditation standards will be ready by Nov 05’

Shardul Nautiyal - Mumbai

Addressing the need for a uniform accreditation system for healthcare institutes, the draft on standards of healthcare accreditation, prepared by technical committee of National Accreditation Board of Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH), is ready. The 10-chapter was completed on 15th September 2005 and will now be sent to experts of different disciplines for recommendations, to be reviewed by the end of October, this year. The final draft will be ready by the first half of November, this year.

The draft would ensure uniform access, assessment, care of patients and protect patient’s rights. The draft discusses safe provision of clinical services like anaesthesia, surgery, obstetrics, neo-natology, blood bank, emergency, labs and radiology as it would educate patients and empower them to make their healthcare decisions. The implementation of the draft standards would reduce healthcare associated infections (HAI) and adopt international guidelines for infection control with the motive to encourage hospitals to embark on a continuous quality improvement

The draft also discusses optimising facility management to ensure a safe environment for patients and families, encouraging preventive maintenance of equipment and facility, preparing hospitals for internal and external disasters, ensuring knowledgeable staff in the hospital, ensuring that the right doctor takes care of the right patient, encouraging hospitals to train their staff and develop human resource, good medical record keeping and thereby reducing risk to the organisation, compliance with all local and national laws that is India centric. Most importantly, the standards are based on important functions of the hospital.

The Quality Council of India (QCI) will act as a facilitator and monitoring agency in the framing and implementation of the draft and functioning of the accreditation system in the country. Preparation of the standards for accreditation of Indian hospitals, designing the scoring system for objective decisions on whether to accredit a hospital or not, designing the survey methodology for assessing a hospital, conducting accreditation surveys of 30 hospital initially, revising the standards every two years and reviewing the quality of the accreditation system are some of the major functions of the technical committee, which is a part of the accreditation committee.

According to Dr Umesh Gupta, from Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, Delhi, who is the co-convener of the technical committee, “We have taken some inputs from the International Standards for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua) standards for preparing the draft. Most of the standards are based on the JCI standards, scientific literature, evidence-based medicine, experience with Joint Commission International (JCI) process at Apollo Indraprastha Hospitals, a draft of standards prepared for Apollo Indraprastha Hospitals, New Delhi.”

The CII-IHCF document (prepared by Association of Hospital Administrators (AHA) was also referred. “The accreditation standards would assure patients receiving treatment from trained and qualified staff following safe protocols and processes, in a safe environment. Patients would be partners in their own treatment decisions,” adds Dr Gupta.

No foreign agency would be involved in the accreditation process. A team of assessors from India will be appointed to assess the hospitals for standardisation or accreditation. The accreditation committee will comprise five doctors and one ISO expert. Dr Umesh Gupta, coordinator, Division of Innovations in Clinical Experience, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, New Delhi, Dr S Murali, neurologist, Manipal Hospital, Bangalore, Col Pawan Kapoor, Army Medical Corps, New Delhi, Dr Siddharth Satpathy of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi and Dr Bidhan Das, Chief Operating Officer (COO), Rockland Hospital, New Delhi are the members of the technical committee.

The accreditation committee also a part of the accreditation system, which is yet to be formed, will review the survey report of the assessors, recommend accreditation decision to the board (NABH), approve revisions to the standards and review quality of the accreditation system and make recommendations.

According to Dr Girdhar J Gyani, secretary general, QCI, “The healthcare accreditation standards would have a positive impact on the healthcare institutions, as it would ensure affordable quality assurance and patient safety.”

The accreditation system would be unique in the sense that it would be formed according to country specific standards, more so in the perspective of the socio-cultural and professional needs of the Indian Hospitals. It would also be customised according to local, legal and regulatory environment. Tertiary, secondary healthcare institutes and nursing homes will come under the purview of the accreditation system.

The draft is based on the principles of effective evaluation of healthcare delivery with hospitals, who seek accreditation for patient safety and patient care to be achieved. Says Dr Y P Bhatia, chief executive officer, Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre, Rohini, New Delhi, “The introduction of clinical pathways will help reduce the cost of medication, as is very successfully done in the Apollo Indraprastha Hospital, the first Indian hospital to be accredited by the JCI.”

shardulnautiyal@rediffmail.com