Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Meet stresses accreditation of hospitals

Photo: K. Ananthan

FOR QUALITY: Principal Consultant of the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Health Service Providers V.K. Singh speaking at a Confederation of Indian Industry- Quality Council of India awareness programme on Accreditation of Hospitals in the city on Wednesday. —

COIMBATORE: Quality patient care and facilities in hospitals, especially in the light of medical tourism, were stressed here on Wednesday at a meet on Accreditation of Hospitals, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Coimbatore Zone, and the Quality Council of India (QCI).

The meet was organised to generate awareness among hospitals in the district on the process of accreditation by the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH), a wing of the QCI. The CII and its healthcare panel had been emphasising accreditation as hospitals would not be able to survive without world class quality standards at the global level. And, it became even more necessary when overseas patients would look for accredited hospitals.

Principal Consultant of NABH V.K. Singh explained the process of evaluation of hospitals. He said the technical committee of the board had prepared standards against which applicant hospitals would be evaluated for the grant of accreditation.

The standards provided a framework for quality assurance and improvement, he said during a presentation on this subject. These laid immense stress on patient safety and quality of care. These standards were applicable equally to hospitals and nursing homes in the private and Government sector.

“A standard is a statement that defines the structures and processes that must be substantially in place in an organisation to enhance the quality of care,” he said. The board would also take up the accreditation of blood bank and medical imaging services. Vice-Chairman of the CII, Coimbatore Zone, C.N. Ashok said the healthcare sector had been growing rapidly in the past few years, especially after the developed world discovered that it could get quality service in India for less than half the price.

In the last five years, the number of foreign patients visiting India for medical treatment had risen from 10,000 to about one lakh.

With an annual growth rate of 30 per cent, India was already inching closer to Singapore, an established medicare hub that attracted 1.5 lakh medical tourists a year. Hospitals in India conducted the latest surgeries at a very low cost. The healthcare industry employed over four million people and this made it one of the largest service sectors in the country’s economy, Mr. Ashok said.

Fast pace of industrialisation, spiralling population and the increase in the health awareness had led to the growth of the healthcare industry in Coimbatore. The city ranked second after Chennai in the State for highly affordable and quality healthcare.Coimbatore was also the preferred healthcare destination to the population from nearby towns and districts and even countries neighbouring India. Apart from providing healthcare services of international standards, hospitals in Coimbatore were also trendsetters. When hospitals in Mumbai and Bangalore were in the infant stages of networking, those in Coimbatore were surging ahead in this area.

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