The Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project (TNHSP) will establish a help centre at Chennai exclusively to help government and private hospitals obtain National Accreditation Board for Hospitals (NABH) accreditation.
The objective is to ensure all 769 government and private hospitals across Tamil Nadu that are currently empanelled under the Chief Minister’s Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme (CMCHIS) have at least preliminary accreditation within one year, T.S. Selvavinayagam, Joint Director (CMCHIS), TNHSP, told The Hindu here on Monday.
At present, 10 empanelled hospitals, including three government hospitals, have obtained NABH accreditation.
“As cost was the major factor preventing hospitals, the State Government has successfully negotiated an almost 90 per cent in reduction in accreditation fees. The CMCHIS-empanelled hospitals need to pay only around Rs. 10,000 instead of the standard fee of nearly Rs. 1 lakh,” he said.
The long-term objective was to make NAHB accreditation mandatory for CMCHIS empanelment. Many private hospitals in Tamil Nadu now get nearly 60 per cent of their total revenue from the insurance scheme. As such, they would accord priority to remaining under this scheme, he said.
The NABH accreditation involved 636 elements. In the initial phase, the TNHSP wanted the hospitals to obtain entry-level accreditation by following 30 per cent of the total elements. This would be followed by progressive-level accreditation that would require implementing 60 per cent with final stage being implementing the entire set.
Giving some statistics on the performance of CMCHIS, Dr. Selvavinayagam said that around 7.7 lakh patients had benefited in the past two-and-a-half years in the 144 government hospitals and 625 private hospitals.
Of the total Rs. 1,650 crore disbursed under the scheme, government hospitals have received Rs. 580 crore for having treated three lakh patients.
He was in the city on Monday to take part in the second of the three regional-level workshops on NAHB accreditation conducted by TNHSP and United India Insurance, the partner for the State government in this venture.
Around 150 hospitals from 11 Western districts took part. While the first workshop was held at Madurai, one more would be held shortly at Cuddalore.
