National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH) is a constituent board of Quality Council of India (QCI), set up to establish and operate accreditation programme for healthcare organizations. The board while being supported by all stakeholders including industry, consumers, government, have full functional autonomy in its operation. For details, please read “About NABH”.

A public recognition of the achievement of accreditation standards by a healthcare organization, demonstrated through an independent external peer assessment of that organization's level of performance in relation to the standards.

• Commitment to create a culture of quality, patient safety, efficiency and accountability towards patient care.
• Establishment of protocols and policies as per National/International Standards for patient care, medication management, consent process, patient safety, clinical outcomes, medical records, infection control and staffing.
• Patients are treated with respect, dignity and courtesy at all times.
• Patients are involved in care planning and decision making.
• Patients are treated by qualified and trained staff.
• Feedback from patients is sought and complaints (if any) are addressed.
• Transparency in billing and availability of tariff list.
• Continuous monitoring of its services for improvement.
• Commitment to prevent adverse events that may occur.

• Accreditation benefits all Stake Holders. Patients are the biggest beneficiaries. Accreditation results in high quality of care and patient safety. The patients get services by credential medical staff. Rights of patients are respected and protected. Patient satisfaction is regularly evaluated.
• Accreditation to a Hospital stimulates continuous improvement. It enables hospital in demonstrating commitment to quality care. It raises community confidence in the services provided by the hospital. It also provides opportunity to healthcare unit to benchmark with the best.
• The Staff in an accredited hospital are satisfied lot as it provides for continuous learning, good working environment, leadership and above all ownership of clinical processes. It improves overall professional development of Clinicians and Paramedical staff and provides leadership for quality improvement within medicine and nursing.
• Accreditation provides an objective system of empanelment by insurance and other Third Parties. Accreditation provides access to reliable and certified information on facilities, infrastructure and level of care.

Currently, NABH is offering accreditation programs for Hospitals, Small Health Care Organizations/Nursing Homes, Blood Banks and Transfusion Services, Oral Substitution Therapy (OST) Centres and Primary and Secondary Health Centres. A couple of more programs such as Medical Imaging services, Dental Hospitals/Centres, AYUSH Hospitals are being developed.

The organizations can obtain the application form for NABH Accreditation from NABH Secretariat or download it from the web-site. The application form should be accompanied with the required application fee. Hospitals should also submit a signed document ‘Terms and Conditions for Maintaining NABH Accreditation'. The same can be downloaded from the website. For more details please see ‘Accreditation Documents'.

An organization planning to go for NABH accreditation may obtain a copy of NABH accreditation standards and carry out a self assessment on the status of compliance with the standards to ensure that the standards are implemented and integrated with the hospital functioning. Note: For further details, please go through the various documents including “General Information Brochure” available on our website.

NABH provides information on documents and procedures. NABH also organizes awareness programs in general as well as on request of individual organizations. It also guides the applicant organization on different requirements at various stages of accreditation. However NABH do not provide consultancy.

For the convenience of applicant organizations, NABET, which is another constituent Board of QCI has a program for registering qualified consultants/consulting organizations. These registered individuals/organizations are involved in providing consultancy to various health care organizations for NABH standards implementation within their organizations.

NABH accreditation is not a one-time phenomenon. Once the organization gets accredited, accreditation shall be valid for a defined period. NABH conducts a regular surveillance of the accredited organization. The surveillance visit will be planned during the 2 nd year.

NABH is an institutional member of International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua) as well as member of its Board and Accreditation Council. NABH standards for hospitals has been accredited by ISQua. The accreditation of NABH standard for hospitals authenticates that NABH standards are in consonance with the global benchmarks set by ISQua and thus hospitals accredited by NABH will have international recognition.

International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua) is an international body which grants approval to Accreditation Bodies in the area of healthcare as mark of equivalence of accreditation programme of member countries.

NABH is also one of the founder members of newly emerging Asian Society for Quality in Healthcare (ASQua). This initiative is to strengthen the Asian representation at international level and improve the quality structure in healthcare.

Please refer to “Accreditation Register” for the list of accredited and applicant organizations under different programs. One can also see the services being offered by accredited organizations in this section.

NABH may be contacted by telephone, post, email or any other communication media. Enquiries may be addressed to Deputy Director, NABH at info@nabh.co or by post/fax at the following address:

• National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers(NABH)
  Quality Council of India
  ITPI Building, 5th Floor, 4 - A,, Ring Road, I P Estate,
  New Delhi - 110002
  Tel: +91 11 426 00 600
  Fax: +91 11 233 23 415