Bihar Targets NQAS Cert for 10k Health Facilities by '26

A Health Centre Becomes Eligible for Incentive Under the National Health Programme Only After It Passes the Centre's Quality Check.

- Ruchir Kumar

PATNA: To improve quality of health services, assessment for national quality assurance standards (NQAS) certification of 542 health facilities is likely to be completed this month out of a target of 2,177 Bihar has set for 2024-25, said officials here on Sunday.

Prior to January, only around 57 health facilities had got state's certification and 21 national certification of the 10,949 mapped under the national quality assurance programme (NQAP) since its pan India launch in 2013.

Bihar has, however, fast-tracked NQAS state certification in the last three months, having completed 77 state certifications and nine Central certifications, and was expected to complete quality assessment of another 542 HWCs by April.

Dr Abhishek Kumar Sinha, the state programme officer for quality assurance, had asked regional programme managers, through a letter dated April 4, to complete by April 20 the quality assessment of the remaining 244 HWCs out of the 542 shortlisted at the block level, including those along the national and state highways.