2nd healthcare accreditation body on cards

Close on the heels of formation of National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Service Providers (NABH), the country's first accreditation system for the healthcare industry, another accreditation system called the Indian Confederation for Healthcare Accreditation (ICHA) is in the offing.

Lack of standards in hospitals are acting as a prime deterrent in boosting medical tourism in the country. For instance, the healthcare acquired infection rate in Indian hospitals is as high as 20 per cent unlike the impressive 5 per cent in US and UK hospitals.

International accreditation such as Joint Commission International (JCI) is very expensive and so far only two corporate hospitals such as The Apollo Indraprastha Hospital in Delhi and The Wockhardt Hospital in Mumbai have been able to afford it, making it imperative for the Indian healthcare industry to have its own accreditation system.

Comprehensive accreditation addresses all the dimensions of healthcare such as appropriateness, availability, continuity, effectiveness, responsive and caring delivery, safety and risk minimization and timeliness.

Work on ICHA has begun under the aegis of Akhil K Sangal, a management consultant with 30 years of experience in healthcare systems.

ICHA has been registered as a national, not-for-profit organisation incorporated as a Company U/S 25 of the Companies Act registered in NCT of Delhi. It will be an autonomous body of all stakeholders (primarily healthcare providers, users, payers, educators and regulators).

The plan of action has been decided in 3 phases. Phase I will focus on strengthening the organisation by enrolling all stakeholders, awareness campaigns, fund raising and building databases.

Phase II will be on content building, training, guidelines and standards development while Phase III will focus on accreditation implementation. Currently, the work is on Phase I.

Thus far, 23 national associations such as The National Associations of Physicians (API), Surgeons (ASI), Anaesthetists (ISA), Ophthalmologists (AIOS), Pharmacists (IPA), Hospital administrators (AHA), Hospital Pharmacists (IHPA) have joined ICHA as members.

These national associations will be voting members besides ICHA has 12 individual organisational affiliates and 179 individual affiliates. "The basic objective of ICHA is to develop a continuously improving, self-regulating, patient centred healthcare delivery system for the benefit of all concerned with healthcare by all concerned with healthcare," informed Sangal.