The National Accreditation Board for Hospital and Healthcare (NABH) will be finalizing a set of accreditation standards for dental hospitals in the country. A committee for granting dental accreditation is also expected to be ready by the mid of June 2007.

Speaking with Pharmabiz Dr Bhupendra Kumar Rana, director, NABH said, "For the dental hospital accreditation we are planning to have a new committee. The new committee will start working on the accreditation standards by mid June 2007. As we have already drafted standards for the hospitals, for the dental hospitals we are planning to do minor modification in the existing hospital accreditation standards. As soon as the committee will do evaluations of the existing hospital accreditation standards, then we will immediately send the new standards to the expert committee for reviewing them".

The NABH has also constituted the technical committee for the Medical imaging service. The committee has been constituted to draft the accreditation standards. For the evaluation of new standards the nursing technical committee and small technical committee's work is in progress.

Simultaneously, the board has also prepared separate quality standards for the blood banks. The groundwork for setting up standards of blood bank operation is ready and experts are reviewing the same for any kind of changes. The new standards for the blood will take another 2-3 months to get things ready.

As Pharmabiz has earlier reported that the Quality Council of India (QCI) is looking after the necessary standards in the health sector. The QCI is in the process of networking with Gujarat state government. It has already tied up with Madhya Pradesh for the next four years to develop quality assurance programme to improve the standards of district hospitals.