National accreditation for medical centres

NEW DELHI - In an effort to improve medical services as well as patient experiences, accreditation standards for medical imaging services (MIS) like X-rays and gamma rays were introduced Friday across the country.

“The standards have been set keeping in mind the control of services, personnel, imaging processes and procedures, facility and environment equipment and documentation to risk control and safety,” said Zainab Zaidi, assistant director of the National Accreditation Board for Hospital and Healthcare Providers (NABH).

NABH, a constituent board of Quality Control of India (QCI), introduced the standards Friday.

NABH was set up with the cooperation of the ministry of health and family welfare, Government of India and the Indian health industry.

Giridhar Gyani, Secretary General, QCI said: “The MIS will have to obtain a copy of NABH standards and can submit the application. If the centres fulfil all the requirements then we would issue the accreditation certificate.”

According to Gyani, the certificate would be valid for a period of three years with a surveillance visit after 18 months.

“We would issue warnings or will suspend the accreditation if we find any centre not adhering to the rules,” he said.

NABH was launched around a month back and it has already received seven applications from various MIS centres including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore.

“The response is pretty good and we are confident that more and more centres would be applying soon as many of them must be fulfilling the basic requirements needed for filling the application,” Gyani added.

The fees for applying for a centre which has one modality will be Rs.10,000, for those with two modalities will be Rs.15,000 and Rs.20,000 for the ones with three or more modalities.

“With the centres displaying this certificate, the number of visitors will obviously increase as people would easily trust that centre. So, this is an investment for MIS,” said Zaidi.