Enhancing Healthcare Quality for Armed Forces Veterans through ECHS–NABH Partnership
The Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS), launched by the Ministry of Defence, provides cashless and quality healthcare services to Armed Forces Veterans (AFVs) and their dependents across India. Through this initiative, NABH-QCI conducts impartial and structured quality assessments of hospitals applying for empanelment, evaluating them on service quality, patient safety, infrastructure, and ethical practices. Recommendations from these evaluations are submitted to ECHS and also published on the NABH website for transparency and public access.
This collaboration ensures that Armed Forces Veterans and their families receive dependable and standardised care across ECHS-empanelled hospitals. It introduces a structured and transparent approach to empanelment, aligning service providers with national quality benchmarks and strengthening public confidence in veteran healthcare.
To assess and recommend hospitals for empanelment under ECHS by evaluating them against defined quality standards—ensuring safe, ethical, and consistent healthcare services for Armed Forces Veterans and their dependents.
"• Introduces robust quality assurance mechanisms across the ECHS network to ensure high service standards.
• Promotes a transparent and objective hospital empanelment process guided by evidence and assessment.
• Enhances patient safety and care delivery through compliance with NABH-defined benchmarks.
• Builds public trust in the ECHS ecosystem by ensuring standardisation, accountability, and periodic performance monitoring.
• Strengthens the long-term reliability of veteran healthcare infrastructure by ensuring only capable, ethical, and well-equipped hospitals are empanelled."