Indian Stroke Association (ISA) and Quality and Accreditation Institute (QAI) join hands to strengthen Stroke Care across the country through developing specific accreditation standards for Stroke Care. Typically, Accreditation Standards laid down a set of requirements which are usually higher than basic requirements for licensing of a healthcare facility. Standards provide an opportunity to healthcare providers to look at their structures, processes and outcomes. Stroke care standards will support hospitals to demonstrate their systems to deliver basic and advance level of care.  ISA is committed to improve Stroke care in the country and hence getting into this collaboration with QAI. Key ingredients of this collaboration are:

• ISA to support QAI in developing Accreditation Standards for Stroke care (Primary Stroke Centre and Advanced Stroke Centre) by providing technical experts to be included in the QAI Technical Committee for developing accreditation standards.
• ISA to endorse accreditation standards for wider acceptability and success of the programme, and
• Jointly support to create awareness amongst hospitals and professionals about the accreditation programme.

On the occasion, Dr. V. G. Pradeep Kumar, President-ISA, Dr. Arvind Sharma, Secretary-ISA, Dr. Vikram Huded, Treasurer-ISA, Mr. Neeraj Lal, QAI Technical Expert and Dr. B.K.  Rana, CEO-QAI reiterated the significance of co-creation of such accreditation standards and setting the common objectives in the larger interest of relevant stakeholders. This MOU is particularly relevant as Stroke is one of the leading causes of disability and death in India and therefore strengthening hospitals to improve Stroke care need to be given a priority.

Indian Stroke Association (ISA), was set up to encourage scientific research in stroke and allied disciplines; to promote, develop, provide exchange of knowledge as well as technical cooperation between research institutions in India; and to conduct conferences, refresher courses, lectures, seminars, and exhibitions related to the stroke research.

Quality and Accreditation Institute (QAI) was set up as an Accreditation Body to create an ecosystem of education, training,

quality improvement and accreditation/ certification. QAI is rapidly emerging as a leader in healthcare accreditation achieving global benchmarks evident through development of several accreditation standards in less than five years. We aim to foster partnerships with stakeholders using an approach of co-design and co-creation.