The Chief Minister's Office of Assam announced on Thursday, 25 June 2026 that the Radiology Department of Gauhati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) in Guwahati has received accreditation from the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH), marking a significant quality milestone for Assam's oldest government medical institution.

Context

Gauhati Medical College, established in 1960, is Assam's premier government medical college and serves as a major tertiary care and teaching hospital for the entire Northeast India region. The NABH accreditation of its Radiology Department signals that the unit has met rigorous national standards covering equipment quality, radiation safety protocols, and diagnostic reporting accuracy. This recognition places the department among accredited public-sector radiology units in India.

Policy Backdrop

NABH was constituted in 2005 by the Quality Council of India to operate accreditation programmes for healthcare organisations, and subsequently extended its standards to cover diagnostic departments including radiology. The National Health Policy 2017 explicitly mandated quality standards and accreditation for public hospitals to improve patient safety and service delivery. NABH accreditation for radiology specifically evaluates radiation safety measures, equipment calibration, turnaround time for reports, and adherence to standard operating procedures — benchmarks that directly affect diagnostic reliability for patients.

State governments across India have increasingly pushed for NABH accreditation of individual departments within government medical colleges, moving beyond whole-hospital accreditation to target high-throughput diagnostic units. Radiology departments in public hospitals handle large patient volumes, making quality certification particularly consequential for outcomes in tertiary care settings.

Stakeholders and Impact

Patients from Assam and neighbouring northeastern states who depend on GMCH for affordable tertiary care stand to benefit most directly. The accreditation provides an independent quality assurance that the department's imaging and diagnostic services conform to national standards, which can improve confidence in diagnostic outputs used for clinical decision-making. Medical staff, including radiologists and radiographers, gain formal recognition that their practices align with best-in-class protocols.

For the Assam government, the accreditation strengthens the case for channelling health insurance and government-scheme patients to GMCH's radiology unit, as many schemes preference or require accredited facilities for reimbursement eligibility. It also raises the bar for other departments and medical colleges in the state.

What's Next

The development raises the prospect of NABH accreditation drives being extended to other clinical and diagnostic departments at Gauhati Medical College, as well as to other government medical institutions across Assam such as those in Silchar, Dibrugarh, and Jorhat. If the state pursues a systematic accreditation programme, it could position Assam's public health infrastructure more competitively within the Northeast. The Assam government's focus on quality benchmarking in public hospitals is likely to intensify as national health missions increasingly tie funding to verifiable quality outcomes.