Dr. Animesh Jindal
Deputy Administrator, Randhawa Eye
Hospital and Lasik Centre, Punjab
NABH accreditation is a hot topic since it is becoming mandatory for hospitals and daycare centres in order to get empanelment with TPA and insurance. However, getting accredited is a cumbersome process and requires investment of man hours and resources.
Dr Animesh Jindal, deputy administrator of Randhawa Eye Hospital and LASIK Centre, Patiala, Punjab has been working towards getting the centre NABH accredited. AIOS Times caught up with him to understand the challenges he faces in the process.
“I think that the need to upgrade the existing infrastructure poses the biggest challenge for smaller setups like ours” said Dr Jindal. “The amount of paperwork involved is enormous and often very time consuming” he added, “and this is compounded by the lack of clarity with regard to certain aspects of the accreditation process.” In an example, he mentions that there is often confusion regarding whether a particular staff can multitask or what trainings are required to certify a staff to perform certain tasks. Similarly, issues arise with multiple use of designated single use devices, which is often a practice in ophthalmology.
“On the human resource front, additional staff training and hiring of dedicated persons to guide through the accreditation process, adds to cost. In fact, maintaining the records and paperwork in order is a recurrent cost that smaller centres may have trouble justifying” said Dr Jindal.
However, he agrees that healthcare accreditation does help in ensuring compliances and good clinical practices both of which are a must for better outcomes. In our centre which has been functional for over 25 years, accreditation is a step towards being future ready. “Whatever said and done about the process being tedious and expensive, the end result of accreditation is definitely a good one and one which upgrades the hospital overall” concluded Dr Animesh
