NABH and HSSC sign MoU for recognition and skilling initiatives of healthcare professionals 

Dr Atul Kochhar, CEO, National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH) and Ashish Jain, CEO, Healthcare Sector Skill Council (HSSC), signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) today aimed at recognition of HSSC certification for NABH accreditation; develop training programmes for skilling, reskilling and upskilling required for healthcare professionals. The collaboration will help in achieving the goal of enhancing healthcare quality in the country. The MoU was signed in the presence of D Selvakumar, IAS, Secretary, Skill Development, Entrepreneurship and Livelihood, Government of Karnataka and Dr Devi Shetty, Chairman, HSSC.

Dr Atul Kochhar, CEO, NABH, said, “Our partnership with HSSC will assist us in further strengthening the entire ecosystem of patient safety and healthcare delivery. Over the years, NABH standards have brought paradigm shift in delivering healthcare services and it has helped in sensitising healthcare workers about their responsibilities. However, a country as diverse as India, growing at an unprecedented rate, requires many professionals who are skilled, continuously reskilling and upskilling. Today, our overall medical professional count per 1,000 patients is much below than WHO standards across doctors, patients and paramedics category. This partnership will also help us in exploring solutions and addressing this gap.”

Ashish Jain, CEO, HSSC, briefed that HSSC collaboration with NABH will facilitate better placement and apprenticeship opportunities for HSSC-certified healthcare professionals across the country in line with vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the objective of Skill India Mission under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. HSSC works closely with industry and academia to create a skills ecosystem in the healthcare sector, which helps in development of skilled and work-ready professionals as required by the industry.

Dr Devi Shetty, Chairman, HSSC, in his message, said that skills form the most important pillar of effective healthcare delivery system across the world. HSSC-NABH partnership sets the path for recognition of skills for enhancing healthcare quality and patient safety. I hope this collaboration between HSSC and NABH would lead to an inevitable and essential shift in terms of recognition of skills, practical oriented training and enhanced placement opportunities for certified healthcare professionals. This will have a major impact in better accessibility and early intervention in healthcare delivery in India.

This initiative is envisaged to provide impetus to quality training, skilling, creating placement opportunities for skilled healthcare workforce leading to enhanced quality of healthcare for patients.