Entry Level NABH for Hospitals
What is Entry Level NABH?
There are more than 50,000 hospitals across India, which include small nursing homes as well as large multispecialty hospitals. Many hospitals are finding the full NABH standards extremely challenging to implement due to their complexity and the large number of objective elements to be met and complied with.
In order to enable and help small hospitals, nursing homes, and to reach hospitals located in remote areas, NABH in collaboration with the Quality Council of India (QCI) has developed the Entry-Level NABH standards. These standards will act as the first step of awareness toward implementing a culture of quality and patient safety in these hospitals. These standards are also termed as Pre-Accreditation Entry-Level standards for NABH.
The NABH Entry-Level standards are roughly one-fourth the size of the full accreditation NABH standards. Thus, they are relatively implementable for all hospitals, even the small nursing homes. Also, there are minimal infrastructural changes required in your existing setup, and hence it is not very difficult for a hospital to achieve the certification with the help of the right NABH consultant company.
Helps Empanelment for providing Cashless Services
Entry-Level NABH Certification significantly helps hospitals achieve empanelment with both public (Government) and private insurance companies and Third-Party Administrators (TPAs). Medigence provides effective and practical solutions for Entry-Level NABH compliance. Although infrastructure compliances are excluded, Entry-Level NABH is to be taken seriously as only an experienced NABH expert having faced at least 50 or more successful assessments can understand assessors’ perspective and can solve non-compliances properly in efficient manner.
HOPE Platform
Unlike the previous Entry-Level NABH, HOPE has two assessments. Hospitals have to go through a desktop assessment first, and then, after a successful desktop assessment, hospitals can ask for a physical assessment date. HOPE is directly managed by QCI (Quality Council of India). Medigence is the only NABH consulting company in Gujarat with the largest number of successful applications as well as certifications in HOPE platform.
Why hire a NABH consultant company for Entry Level NABH certification?
- Many small healthcare organisations try to manage the Entry-Level NABH project themselves but are not able to because of the required learning curve and the time and energy the project demands. This results in a tremendous waste of time and money. Also, the morale of the hospital staff and stakeholders becomes low, as they get confused and unconfident.
- NABH consultant companies like Medigence can help doctors, hospital owners, or hospital CEOs save a lot of time, energy, and resources, helping them to focus on what they do best. With 15+ years of experience, Medigence knows the specific tasks to be performed to meet the objective elements and NABH standards.
- As NABH standards are highly subjective, NABH consultant companies like Medigence know exactly what is to be done and what is the best practical solution to implement a particular NABH standard and the objective element associated with the standard.
- Once you create the login for the Entry-Level NABH form in the HOPE portal, it gives you 21 days to finish the approximately 40-pages application form, along with the upload of all necessary documents. NABH experts at Medigence know what documents are to be submitted beforehand, ensuring the application gets completed in the first attempt and you do not have to pay the fees again.
- There is a lot of training to be given to hospital staff. These are imparted by NABH experts at Medigence, saving the time, resources, and energy of hospital stakeholders or administrative persons.
- NABH consultant companies like Medigence know the right format of the documentation to be used for implementing NABH standards.
A copy of the NABH standards can be availed from the NABH website: https://nabh.co/explore-nabh-standards/
For the Fee structure, kindly visit the NABH website :
https://nabh.co/programmes/entry-level-hospitals-certification-programme/
https://nabh.co/programmes/entry-level-small-healthcare-organisation-shco-certification-programme/
Who can apply ?
Any new hospital aspiring to set its foot ahead towards the quality journey and join the list of NABH recognized healthcare organizations can apply and get the certification. The hospital needs to be operational for minimum 6 months in order to apply for the NABH certification.
With IRDAI (Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority of India) regulation dated 29th July 2016 sited on the NABH website: https://nabh.co/Announcement/IRDA.pdf, NABH entry level certification is a highly preferred criterion for selection and empanelment by all the public and private insurance companies.
While the full NABH have more than 100 standards and 639 objective elements, the Pre-accreditation NABH standards have only 46 standards and 189 objective elements.
Hence, the entry-level standards are suitable for all kinds of hospitals, including large corporate organisations in major cities to small nursing homes in any small town across the country.
What are the advantages ?
NABH-certified/accredited hospitals undoubtedly have more benefits than non-certified/accredited hospitals. The NABH pre-accreditation certification is highly recommended for hospitals that wish to provide cashless and reimbursement facilities to their patients.
Moreover, there are various benefits for the patients being treated as well as the staff serving in such NABH-certified hospitals.
While the patients are assured improved quality of care and safety at all levels of treatment, the staff’s efficiency, accountability, and adherence to various standard operating procedures (SOPs) are ensured.
A hospital gets a competitive advantage over non-NABH hospitals in terms of patient satisfaction and raised community confidence. The services provided by the NABH-certified hospitals are benchmarked with the best, which helps with the hospital’s branding and marketing and promotes medical tourism.
Process of Entry Level NABH certification
The hospitals preparing for NABH Entry level certification shall undergo various phases starting from preparing for the certification to receiving the certification. Medigence shall guide you and handhold your hospital at each and every stage of your NABH journey.
Sensitisation of the staff and preparing for NABH application
This phase takes approximately 2 months
Registration & filling up the application form
Once your hospital is ready to apply, we help you register on the online portal for HOPE and start filling up the application form. We have only 21 days to furnish all the required details. Hence, as your NABH consultants, we shall help you fulfil all the requirements before starting to fill up the application form so that we do not miss the deadlines.
Desktop Assessment
NABH desktop assessment takes around 21 days. In case there is any non-compliance noted during the same, the hospital has only 7 days to furnish the compliance report. In case there are still some non-compliances, the hospital gets another 7 days. Hence, there are approximately 2 cycles for complying with the non-conformities that may be raised during the desktop assessment
Physical Assessment
After successful completion of the desktop assessment, the hospital shall receive a physical assessment date within 2-3 months. The assessment dates are solely managed by NABH directly and are subject to the availability of NABH assessors and other conditions.
The physical assessment, depending upon the size of the hospital, will be of 1 man day for small hospitals and nursing homes and 2-man days for large hospitals
Closing the non-conformities
After successful completion of the physical assessment, the hospital will have 7 days to furnish the corrective and preventive actions report also known as “closure report” in response to the non-compliances raised by the assessor. The assessor shall review the same within 7 days and may again raise certain queries if they need further clarifications. Again, the hospital shall have 7 days to submit the closure report. Hence, just like the desktop assessment the hospital will get 2 chances to submit the closure reports.
NABH Accreditation committee review meeting & Certification
The review committee meets almost every month. Hence after submission of the closure report, it will take approximately 1 months’ time while our case is reviewed. Based on the evidence received, the hospital is awarded the certificate. The certificate is valid for 2 years.
Hence, the approximate duration from initiating NABH pre-entry level process in the hospital till receiving the certificate is 8-9 months. However, with full support and cooperation of our hospitals, we have been able to complete the entire process within 5-6 months!