Government and insurance companies are recommending hospitals with accreditation to their beneficiaries and clients, according to National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Health Care Providers (NABH) joint director Bhupendra Kumar Rana.
Mr. Rana presented the NABH accreditation to Nagarjuna Hospital at a special function organised for the presentation of the certificate and celebration of the hospitals 20th anniversary. He said Nagarjuna Hospital was one of the two hospitals in coastal Andhra to have the accreditation. Another hospital in Visakhapatnam also had the accreditation. Besides the two in coastal Andhra, 15 hospitals in Hyderabad have the recognition. Mr. Rana said that the jurisdiction of NABH was no more limited to the borders of the country as it was gaining recognition all over the world. Central government employees, defence personnel, and several insurance agencies were preferring hospitals with NABH recognition, he said. Patient safety and quality health care were being given priority, but of late patient safety was gaining prominence, he said.
Stress on quality
Pinnamaneni Siddartha Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Foundation director general C. Nageswara Rao, presiding over the function, stressed the importance of quality in providing health care services.
Swathi magazine editor Vemuri Balaram said that the ethical values of doctors were on the wane leading to an erosion of their public imagine. The damage to the image of the doctors was done mostly by diagnostic centres, he charged. Nagarjuna Hospital Chairman Kodali Jagan Mohan Rao, his wife K. Sri Lakshmi received the certificate from Mr. Rana. Dr. Rao is a gastroenterologist and Dr Sri Lakshmi is an anaesthesiologist.
After working abroad for several years, the husband and wife returned to establish the Nagarjuna Hospital 20 years ago.
