NABH Digital Health Accreditation Programme
Digital health marks a transformative shift in the healthcare industry, fuelled by integrating
advanced technologies and data-driven solutions. It has the potential to expand access to quality
care, optimize processes, improve care delivery, and reduce costs. These technologies have
revolutionized patient care, allowing hospitals to provide more personalized and efficient services
and also empower individuals to take control of their health, enable healthcare providers to offer
more personalized and efficient care and contribute to better health outcomes on a global scale.
Therefore, to promote digital health in the health domain NABH launched the Digital Health
Accreditation Programme on 17 September 2023.
The Digital Health Accreditation Programme is a comprehensive process which focuses on the broad spectrum of innovations, including telemedicine, electronic health records (EHRs), mobile health apps, wearable devices, artificial intelligence, and all aspects of digitalization which may affect a patient or a family or an administrator. NABH has retained the chapters, standards, and objective elements for Digital Health Accreditation Programme. The Digital Health Standards have 8 chapters, 38 standards, and 181 objective elements which further combine to define the digital maturity of a hospital on levels such as Silver, Gold, and Platinum which have been defined below for the first accreditation cycle and the surveillance cycle.
The Digital Health Accreditation Programme is a comprehensive process which focuses on the broad spectrum of innovations, including telemedicine, electronic health records (EHRs), mobile health apps, wearable devices, artificial intelligence, and all aspects of digitalization which may affect a patient or a family or an administrator. NABH has retained the chapters, standards, and objective elements for Digital Health Accreditation Programme. The Digital Health Standards have 8 chapters, 38 standards, and 181 objective elements which further combine to define the digital maturity of a hospital on levels such as Silver, Gold, and Platinum which have been defined below for the first accreditation cycle and the surveillance cycle.
Levels for First Accreditation Cycle
| Table 1 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| At the time of first accreditation | Core | Commitment | Achievement | Excellence |
| Silver Level | 100% | 60% | NA | NA |
| Gold Level | 100% | 60% | 60% | NA |
| Platinum Level | 100% | 60% | 60% | 60% |
Levels for Surveillance Cycle
| Table 2 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Surveillance (After 24 months of first accreditation) | Core | Commitment | Achievement | Excellence |
| Silver Level | 100% | 80% | NA | NA |
| Gold Level | 100% | 80% | 80% | NA |
| Platinum Level | 100% | 80% | 80% | 80% |
- Access, Assessment and Continuity of Care (AAC)
- Care of Patients (COP)
- Management of Medication (MOM)
- Digital Infrastructure (DIS)
- Digital Operations Management (DOM)
- Finance and Procurement Management (FPM)
- Human Resources Management (HRM)
- Information Management System (IMS)
- Hospitals will be able to establish a registry at appropriate level by creating a single source of system for clinical establishments, patients, healthcare professionals and workers, and pharmacy.
- Hospitals will be able to demonstrate the quality of providing healthcare services being provided in a more effective manner.
- Encourage the healthcare professionals to use Clinical Decision Support Systems
- Hospitals will be able to analyse the overall services data in a more effective way which will further help the hospital in research and development
- Patients will have the ability to securely store and access their medical records, including prescriptions, diagnostic reports, and discharge summaries.
- Patient can also share the information with healthcare providers to facilitate appropriate treatment and follow-up care remotely.
- Patients can access health services remotely through telemedicine and e-pharmacy
- Healthcare professionals from various disciplines will have improved access to a patient’s medical history (with the required informed consent), allowing them to prescribe more suitable and effective health interventions.
Healthcare organization (HCO) and Small Healthcare Organisations (SHCO) fully accredited by NABH with 5th edition can apply for Digital Health Accreditation Programme.
All aspiring healthcare organizations desirous to achieve digital health accreditation can apply online by registering on the NABH website. Kindly refer to the general information brochure on the digital health accreditation page on the NABH website.
NABH Secretariat organizes training sessions on understanding NABH Digital Health standards and implementing them in the organizations. These sessions are taken by faculty from NABH who are senior assessors. The details of these trainings, dates, venue, and fee information are available on the NABH website. Apart from this guidance material is available on the “Resource” page of the NABH web portal.
Kindly visit the below link to attend training programs being conducted by NABH. https://nabh.co/EducationTraining.aspx
Kindly visit the below link to attend training programs being conducted by NABH. https://nabh.co/EducationTraining.aspx
To obtain a copy of NABH standards, kindly click on the below shown cover page
