National Health Authority inks MoU with Quality Council of India

The National Health Authority (NHA), responsible for implementation of Ayushman Bharat and Quality Council of India, inked an agreement Wednesday for launching a joint initiative of digital certification for empanelled hospitals to improve the quality of healthcare system in the country.

The initiative will help the hospitals to get fast-track certification while enhancing healthcare services, a statement said.

The partnership aims to create a process to facilitate certification of at least 7,000 empanelled hospitals by December 2021 to build a network of quality healthcare providers.

"The MoU seeks to put in place a simple, swift, transparent and paperless mechanism to encourage the hospitals to apply for certification," the statement said.

Following the existing policy of incentivising the accredited hospitals, the NHA also plans to incentivise the certified hospitals with higher reimbursement rates so that more hospitals apply for certification.

There will be three levels of AB-PMJAY quality certifications -- Bronze, Silver and Gold with Gold being the highest level under this initiative.

Indu Bhushna, CEO of AB-PMJAY and NHA, said, "There is an urgent need to help hospitals to get certified to improve the quality healthcare ecosystem in the country. NHA, therefore, has decided to collaborate with QCI and use its well-established systems, skills and credibility for hospital certification. This will boost confidence of beneficiaries in the quality of care being provided under the scheme."