NABH Digital Health Standards for Hospitals: Chapters, Maturity Levels and How to Apply

The NABH Digital Health Standards (DHS) set out how a hospital should use digital systems, from patient registration and lab orders to cybersecurity, billing and data exchange. NABH uses them to assess hospitals. The current 2nd edition, published in September 2025, has eight chapters, 38 standards and 182 objective elements. A hospital can earn digital health accreditation at Silver, Gold or Platinum level, or a simpler two-year certification at Silver level. This guide covers what the standards contain, who can apply, how scoring works and how they fit with NABH hospital accreditation.

What the NABH Digital Health Standards are

NABH (National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers), a constituent board of the Quality Council of India, released the 1st edition of its Digital Health Standards for Hospitals on 17 September 2023. It called them India’s first digital health standards for hospitals. The 2nd edition followed in September 2025, and the full text can be downloaded free from NABH’s Digital Health Standards page.

The standards do not name or require any particular software. Each standard describes a digital capability, such as “The hospital uses a digital system to manage patients’ admissions”, and its objective elements spell out what assessors check. NABH states that the objective elements apply to all kinds of hospitals, whatever their size, location, ownership or specialty mix.

NABH now has a small family of digital health standards:

• Digital Health Standards for Hospitals: the subject of this guide, used for NABH’s Digital Health Accreditation and Digital Health Certification programmes for healthcare providers.
• Digital Health Standards for HIS/EMR Systems: a certification for hospital information system and electronic medical record software, first published in September 2024. Vendors apply, not hospitals.
• Digital Health Standards for Clinic Management Systems (CMS): a certification for clinic software, with a diabetes annexure. An oncology annexure has also been added to the HIS/EMR standards.

Who can apply

Both hospital programmes are open to any healthcare provider with an in-patient (IPD) or day-care set-up. The standard lists allopathic multi-specialty and single-specialty hospitals, allopathic clinics offering day-care services, eye care hospitals, dental hospitals and Ayush hospitals as eligible.

You do not need to hold NABH accreditation already. However, a provider granted digital health accreditation must apply for one of NABH’s core accreditation programmes (hospital, small healthcare organisation, dental, Ayush or eye care) during the third year of its digital health accreditation, unless it is already accredited under one of them.

The certification programme was first opened to NABH entry-level certified hospitals and small healthcare organisations from 1 April 2025. Applications are made through NABH’s HOPE portal, the same portal used for NABH entry-level certification.

The eight chapters of the standards

The 2nd edition has three clinical chapters and five non-clinical ones. They are often described as “eight standards”, but each chapter holds several standards, 38 in all.

The standard also includes an annex of key performance indicators, such as the share of OPD appointments booked digitally, each tied to an objective element.

Objective elements and maturity levels

As in NABH’s 5th and 6th edition hospital standards, every objective element is tagged with one of four categories. The 182 elements split as follows:

• Core (17): assessed at every assessment and required at every level.
• Commitment (57)
• Achievement (53)
• Excellence (55)

Each element is scored 0 (not met), 5 (partially met) or 10 (fully met). Elements for services a hospital does not offer, such as a blood centre in a small hospital, are marked not applicable and left out of the score. Compliance is then worked out separately for each category.

Silver, Gold and Platinum

The three levels are thresholds on those categories. At the first accreditation assessment:

• Silver: 100% of Core and at least 60% of Commitment elements.
• Gold: the Silver thresholds plus at least 60% of Achievement elements.
• Platinum: the Gold thresholds plus at least 60% of Excellence elements.

At the assessment 24 months later, the 60% thresholds rise to 80%, and Core stays at 100%. A hospital chooses the level it applies for after its self-assessment, and only the elements for that level are assessed.

These are levels of the digital health programme only. NABH’s hospital accreditation itself is not graded Silver, Gold or Platinum.

Accreditation or certification

The two programmes use the same standard but differ in depth and commitment:

Fees and validity are taken from the standard and NABH’s accreditation and certification programme pages. NABH’s FAQ page gives a two-year validity for digital health accreditation, which conflicts with both, so confirm the cycle with NABH when you apply. In both programmes, non-compliances found at assessment must be closed within 90 days.

How the standards relate to NABH hospital accreditation

The Digital Health Standards are a separate standard and a separate programme. NABH’s main hospital standards, the 6th edition effective from 1 January 2025, have 10 chapters, 100 standards and 639 objective elements. They cover the whole hospital, not just its digital systems.

The two connect in three ways:

• Same scoring language: both use Core, Commitment, Achievement and Excellence elements, so quality teams already familiar with NABH assessments will recognise the method.
• A digital element in the hospital standards: the 6th edition added an Excellence element (IMS.1.h) asking hospitals to “make efforts to use digital health technology to improve operational efficiency, patient safety and patient experience”. The DHS is the detailed roadmap for that.
• A path into full accreditation: a provider with digital health accreditation must enter a core NABH accreditation programme by its third year if it is not already in one.

NABH also presents the standards as aligned with its accreditation requirements, so evidence built for one helps with the other. For the main process, see our step-by-step guide to NABH accreditation.

What the standards ask for in practice

The 17 Core elements show the minimum NABH expects of any digitally assessed hospital. They include:

• A unique hospital ID for every new patient, with or without an Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA), and all medical records linked to that ID.
• A unique sample ID for every lab sample, traceable to the patient.
• Digital stock tracking for emergency medicines.
• Power backup for digital systems, active anti-virus and a written IT policy that is reviewed periodically.
• Managed user credentials and authentication, controls on copying data to external storage, and digital archiving and retrieval of data.
• Digital patient payments with predefined charges, and a defined IT budget.

Higher levels move towards interoperability and data protection. These include capturing ABHA and linking lab reports and discharge summaries to it, creating health documents in FHIR format as recommended by India’s National Resource Centre for EHR Standards, and tagging lab results with LOINC codes. Others cover digital consent management, letting patients request correction or erasure of their data, and appointing a Data Protection Officer. Those last three map closely to duties under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. Our guide to health data retention policies in India covers the record-keeping side.

Patient feedback and complaints

Standard AAC.8 asks hospitals to capture patient feedback and complaints digitally. At Commitment level the hospital collects patient or family feedback through a digital system. The interpretation names website, email, SMS, mobile app, kiosk, QR code and voice as acceptable channels. At Achievement level it segregates and analyses that feedback by touchpoint. The KPI annex tracks the share of IPD discharges and OPD consultations that have at least one digital feedback, every month.

A QR-based tool such as LazyMonkey’s patient feedback system for hospitals covers this kind of touchpoint-wise collection and reporting. Our explainer on QR code feedback systems explains how they work.

How to prepare and apply

NABH’s application steps start with a gap analysis, policies and manuals, and its self-assessment toolkit. In practice the route looks like this:

1. Read the standard and its interpretations, starting with the Core elements and the level you are aiming for.
2. Run a gap analysis chapter by chapter. Your hospital information system’s actual modules matter more than its brochure. Our guide to the functional requirements of a hospital management system helps here.
3. Write the policies the standard expects, such as the IT policy, access control, disaster recovery and data security procedures.
4. Complete NABH’s self-assessment toolkit and close the gaps it shows.
5. Register and apply online, upload documents and pay the fees.
6. Undergo the assessment by NABH digital assessors, then close any non-conformities.
7. Receive the decision after review by NABH’s Digital Accreditation or Certification Committee. For certification, NABH asks hospitals to apply for renewal six months before expiry.

NABH supports applicants with a two-day Programme on Implementation, a Digital Health Toolkit in its digital library, and regular webinars. The benefits page and FAQs on the Digital Health Standards are useful background for management.

Frequently Asked Questions