NABH Accreditation for Eye Hospitals (Eye Care Organisations Programme)

Who this programme is for

NABH built the Eye Care Organisations (ECO) programme for standalone eye hospitals: cataract and refractive surgery centres, retina and glaucoma practices and charitable eye hospitals. Size does not matter. A 2-room cataract centre and a high-volume eye hospital apply under the same standards and pay fees by surgical volume.

The boundary is specialty. NABH states that hospitals with any other clinical specialty, or misleading names, are not eligible. If your eye department sits inside a multispecialty hospital, you are accredited under the hospital programme or SHCO instead.

Why eye hospitals pursue NABH

• CGHS rates. CGHS empanels standalone eye hospitals and centres through NABH's assessment, and since 13 October 2025 non-NABH facilities are paid 15% below the NABH rate. Our analysis of CGHS facilities without NABH found 57 eye centres on the panel with no NABH accreditation in September 2026.
• Insurance and TPA networks. NABH notes that accredited eye hospitals are more likely to be empanelled by insurers and government schemes. See TPA and insurance empanelment.
• Patient trust and surgical safety. Cataract surgery is high-volume and unforgiving: one endophthalmitis cluster can close a practice. NABH's programme focuses on surgical checklists, sterilisation, records and follow-up, which are the controls that prevent clusters.

What assessors focus on in an eye hospital

NABH describes the programme's focus as standardised clinical and surgical practice, infection control, patient safety and ethical service delivery. It singles out uniform protocols for surgical checklists, sterilisation, patient records and follow-up, plus informed consent and the careful handling of vision-impaired patients. In practice we prepare eye hospitals on:

• Surgical safety: a site-marking and time-out routine that includes the right eye and verified IOL power and model, and pre-operative biometry checked against the lens implanted.
• Sterilisation: cycle validation and records for phaco handpieces and instruments, limits on immediate-use sterilisation, and traceability from each load to each patient.
• Infection surveillance: a post-operative endophthalmitis register, OT environment monitoring and a plan for investigating any cluster.
• Medicines: multi-dose eye drops labelled with opening dates, intravitreal drugs handled as high-alert, and controlled storage of anaesthetic and dilating agents.
• Equipment: calibration and maintenance records for biometers, keratometers, lasers and microscopes, and laser safety controls.
• Consent and communication: procedure-specific consent in the patient's language, read aloud where vision is poor, with risks stated plainly.
• Follow-up: post-operative review schedules, visual outcome records and complaint handling.

The process and fees

The steps NABH lists are: download the standards and guidebook, implement the standards for at least three months, submit the online application with documents and fees, take an optional pre-assessment, then the on-site assessment, the accreditation decision, a surveillance assessment and re-accreditation, which NABH asks for six months before validity expires. Under NABH's implementation plan of 28 October 2025, the 2nd Edition standards (released on 17 September 2025) apply to new applications from 1 January 2026, and 2nd Edition accreditation is valid for four years instead of three. NABH stopped surveillance on the 1st Edition after 31 March 2026. Its programme page still shows the older timing (surveillance at 15–18 months, re-application in year 3), so we confirm your cycle dates with NABH. NABH's guidebook for the eye care standards is a free download, and NABH runs regular Programme on Implementation (POI) sessions.

Plus 18% GST. A virtual assessment is ₹3,000, a focus assessment ₹15,000 and a certificate re-issue ₹6,000. Fees are from NABH's 2nd Edition (January 2026) schedule on nabh.co; confirm current amounts before applying.

How we help eye hospitals

We start with a licence check and an on-floor gap analysis of the OT, CSSD, pharmacy and OPD. We then write surgical safety, sterilisation and consent procedures with your surgeons, train OT and OPD staff, set up the endophthalmitis register and quality indicators, and run a scored mock assessment before you apply. If you are on the CGHS panel, we can prepare the CGHS process alongside. Ask for a free gap assessment.