The National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH) in consultation with the Ministry of Ayush has upgraded the accreditation standards for Ayurveda hospitals. The second edition of accreditation standards for Ayureveda hospitals has been drafted to put more focus on clinical care aspects and suggestion are invited from stakeholders like hospitals, other clinical establishments, and industry before April 07, 2016.

The first edition of NABH standard has been in practice since 2009 to 2015 which has been recently revised and up-graded to 2nd edition. The draft was discussed in detail by industry and reviewed by committee appointed by Ministry of Ayush.

“We are thankful to chairman and members of technical committee who have put great efforts to accomplish this task. These standards are equally applicable to government and private hospitals, and are applicable to whole organisation. Standards are dynamic and would be under constant review process”, says Dr K K Kalra, chief executive office, NABH

The second edition of these standards puts more focus on clinical care aspects. Structural requirement which used to be a separate book in first edition, have been incorporated in second edition. The requirements of the standards is to be identified; evidenced by data gathered, analysed and interpreted with the aim of improving the quality system of a hospital.

In general, the organisation will need to establish clear evidence backed by robust systems and data collection to prove that they are complying with the intent of the standards. These systems are defined, implemented, owned by the staff and finally provide objective evidence of compliance.

The 2nd edition of Ayurveda hospital accreditation standard is divided into 10 chapters, which have been further divided into 97 standards as compared to 94 in first edition. Put together there are 585 objective elements incorporated within these standards. The increase in objective elements is to put increased emphasis on patient safety and also to encourage healthcare organizations to pursue continuous quality improvements.