An autonomous national body for introducing a comprehensive healthcare accreditation system in the country is to be in place soon. The formation of the body would fulfill the dreams of dozens of representative organizations of medical professionals of various specialty disciplines and an array of associations and bodies representing medical and para-medical professions, consumers, media, corporate, government and non-government institutions in India.

The Healthcare Accreditation Council is to be registered as a Section 25 company (not for profit special purpose company) in Delhi.

The healthcare accreditation secretariat functioning here has informed that professional associations like API (physicians), ASI (surgeons), IRIA (radiology), IOA (orthopedics), AIOS (ophthalmology), IPA (pharmacy), TNAI (nursing), ISA (anesthesia), ICP (lab medicine), AOI (ENT), IAP (pediatrics), ISWA (science journalists), IOS (orthodontics), IAMI (medical informatics) etc have already given consent to be part of the movement to ensure the establishment of a credible accreditation system involving the active participation of the people concerned.

According to Dr A K Sangal, convener, accreditation secretariat the proposed body would be an autonomous council represented by professional associations, representatives, professional councils, NBE, NAMS, ICMR, universities and other concerned organizations. The primary objective of the body would be to come out with a comprehensive guideline for the healthcare establishments in the country. Constant updation of guidelines based on evidence and consensus, generic standards on common issues (eg: records, consent, patient participation in decision making etc), processes of internal audit guidelines, code of ethics for each specialty, recognition and rewards for excellence are all part of the visualized structure and activities of the proposed body. All processes and guidelines are to be made by people who do the actual work in conjunction with input providers and output receivers.

In his words, accreditation is the process of evaluating and recognizing excellence in healthcare delivery for whole hospitals, integrated service delivery networks and other such systems as well as professional activities. It is a voluntary process of development and education through consultation, participation and professionalisation and independent peer review. "Comprehensive accreditation addresses all dimensions of healthcare delivery like appropriateness, availability, continuity, effectiveness, responsive and caring, safety and risk minimization and timeliness," he said.

Once the body is registered, the process of finalizing the guidelines will begin. "To ensure credibility and ownership, it is essential that people who actually do the work, as a team develop processes. These are then shared widely through website for suggestions and consensus. From these guidelines are then evolved the benchmarks which are graded as threshold, desirable and ideal. These shall get continually updated. Through training, participating organizations develop scientific protocols that are implemented and self assessed. Finally this excellence is validated through peer review and recognized through accreditation award," he explained.