The National Accreditation Board for Hospital and Healthcare (NABH) has prepared separate quality standards for the blood banks and the same will be announced very soon. The accreditation process based on these standards will be in operation within next 2-3 months.

Talking to Pharmabiz, Dr Bhupendra Kumar Rana, director, NABH said, "The groundwork for setting standards for blood bank operations are ready and experts are reviewing the same for any kind of changes. It will take another 2-3 months to get things ready. We have already set up standards for hospitals."

At present six hospitals from New Delhi, Kerala and Kolkata in the country have implemented NABH standards. NABH has received 37 new accreditation applications. Out of six accredited hospitals, three are from New Delhi which included Max Super Speciality Hospital, Max Devaki Devi Heart & Vascular Institute and Moolchand Hospital. Two hospitals of Calicut MIMS Hospital at Calicut and Kerala Institute of Medical Science at Trinananthapuram are located in Kerala and B M Birla Heart Research Centre in Kolkata.

NABH sources said, Delhi ranks on the top with seven applications followed by Kolkata with five applications and Bangalore four applications for the hospital accreditation. However, Mumbai has only two applications for the hospital accreditation. Other states have also applied for the NABH accreditation. Currently, all the 37 applications are at different stages of processing.

Recently, NABH has signed an MoU with ACHS, Australia on the technical matters. The government is also working to bring new regulation in all segments of healthcare delivery. 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.