Shillong, Jan 22: Nazareth Hospital in the city now has its laboratory accredited by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) and became the hospital to have met national and international quality objectives.

The worldwide acceptance of this accreditation of Nazareth Hospital was given following assessment by NABL certified assessors who gave their consent to fulfilled criteria on November 29, last year.

The NABL accreditation will be valuable for International recognition and mutual acceptance of test results both inside and outside the country.

NABL has agreements with ILAC (International Laboratory Accreditation Conference) and APLAC (Asia Pacific Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation).

NABL is an autonomous body under the aegis of Department of Science & Technology,

Government of India, and is registered under the Societies Act. NABL comes under the Quality Council of India (QCI), a body of which NABH is also a constituent member. It is the only one of its kind that assesses laboratories in India for quality and consistency in the results.

In lines of this accreditation, Nazareth Hospital Clinical Laboratory now complies with ISO 15189:2012 standards and meets its statutory and regulatory requirements. This means that an NABL accredited laboratory in India follows the same guidelines as any other accredited laboratory in the world. It also meets the other quality objectives of excellence in laboratory services using standard technology, ensuring proper resource and staff technical competence, performing tests and report results in a timely and effective manner thereby ensuring patient satisfaction.

It is noteworthy to mention that NABL accreditation is based on evaluation of technical competence whereas ISO certification is based upon verification of proper documentation.

Though documentation forms an essential and important part of NABL, it lays down great emphasis on quality and the lab can be denied accreditation if one does not comply with the quality standards.

In Nazareth Hospital, the analyzers are fully automated and directly linked to the Laboratory and Hospital Information system which greatly reduces transcriptional errors. Multiple, daily quality control checks are carried out. In addition, inter- and intra-laboratory comparisons are carried out within specified time frames to ensure accuracy and reproducibility. Developments in this front have accelerated accreditation by NABL.

It may be added here that Nazareth Hospital is also the first healthcare organization in Meghalaya to receive NABH entry level Accreditation and is the only hospital in the state to be both NABH (Entry level) and NABL accredited.