NMC issues guidelines for assessment, rating of medical colleges from 2024-25 academic year, key takeaways

New Delhi: With an aim to standardize the process of application for new medical colleges, increase of seats for the UG and PG medical courses, and in order to streamline the process of assessment (selection of assessors and assessment), the Medical Assessment and Rating Board (MARB) of the National Medical Commission (NMC) has now prepared new guidelines.

These new guidelines have been prepared by the NMC Board on the basis of the revised Graduate Medical Education Regulations (GMER) 2023 and the Undergraduate Minimum Standard Requirements (UG MSR) 2023.

The new guidelines released by MARB, which shall be applicable for the academic year 2024-2025, discussed at length about the Assessment Process, Application Fee, Stepwise process for Accreditation, Sanctions and Penalty, Assessment and Rating, and Redressal and Appeal procedures.

Further, the document released by NMC also includes the format for the Essentiality Certificate, Format for Consent of Affiliation, Format for Consent of Affiliation for increase in seats, other formats for UG and PG assessment forms, review forms for UG and PG courses, UG scrutiny form, PG scrutiny format, and Assessor self-declaration form.

Referring to these new guidelines for the AY 2024-2025, the NMC Medical Assessment and Rating Board further clarified the following:

"I. Any deficiency found in applications submitted(by the Medical Colleges/Institutions), at any point of time during the ongoing process, the applications will be rejected straight away.

II. Physical inspection does not provide any immunity to the Medical Colleges/Institutions with respect to any deficiency in the applications or AADHAR Enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS) data.

III. Updated MARB guidelines for the AY 2024-25 are subject to any further modifications/clarifications/instructions as issued by the commission from time to time."

Some of the main issues discussed in the guidelines are as follows:

(1) Assessment Process: 

While discussing the Assessment Process, the Commission clarified that "Notwithstanding anything stated elsewhere, the MARB determines the appropriate method of assessment and/or inspection, before granting permission to the applicant to establish a medical institution. Provided such methods shall include, but not be limited to verification of documents in digital or another form, Aadhar-based attendance register, verification of live video feed, photographs, Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) data or surprise physical assessment etc."

Highlighting the importance of Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS), MARB clarified that all medical colleges need to install AEBAS to be linked to Command-and-Control Center of NMC.

"The daily AEBAS of the required staff (faculty, residents and supporting staff), preferably along with face linked recognition, shall be made available to NMC as well as on the Medical College Website in the form of daily attendance dashboard," it mentioned.

MARB further referred to mandatory requirement of 75% attendance of the faculties and residents and clarified that only the medical colleges with the faculties having at least 75% attendance for the last three months from the last date of application (i.e. 19th September) on AEBAS will be analyzed whether such count is meeting MSR requirements or not and thereafter they will be eligible for the physical inspection.

"AEBAS attendance of registered faculty for ten working days prior to (and including) the date of inspection will be an essential criteria to be taken into consideration during the inspection," it further mentioned.

Apart from this, NMC also discussed the pre-assessment process for various applications such as- new PG applications only, other PG applications, applications related to increase of seats in PG and PG, increase of UG seats only, new UG college.

Further, the NMC Board mentioned in detail about the computer based selection of the assessors. It added that in order to reduce human intervention, Robust Randomization Software will be used to select the date of assessment and the assessors. Although the inspection will be surprised, the list of medical colleges that will be assessed will be published on the NMC website. MARB also discussed the code of conduct for the assessors, and the criteria for assessor selection.

While discussing the "Communication timelines for assessment", MARB mentioned the following:

· The assessor will be informed about the name of the district where he/she will be travelling 48 hours before the assessment date. The randomization software will be operated under the direct supervision of MARB.

· The travel agency will also be conveyed about name of the district and details of assessors 48 hours before the assessment date for travel arrangements.

· Further, the name of medical college to assessor will be revealed one day (evening) before the assessment date. However, such information would not be shared with the concerned college to maintain secrecy and element of surprise. Colleges will be intimated about the names of the inspection team only in the morning of date of inspection.

"All assessment work in any or all of the boards or at level of NMC will be done through e-office only," it further mentioned.

Regarding the issue of evaluation result and issuance of letter of approval, MARB mentioned that it shall communicate its decision of permission or otherwise to the eligible entity as per the specified timelines stated in annexure. It added that all cases of cancelled inspections shall be duly documented and immediately reported on NMC website. In such cases, inspections are rescheduled following the steps mentioned in the guidelines.

In case of Show Cause Notice, MARB mentioned that the concerned college will submit the complicance report within the stipulated time period and the process of review and final decision will be followed only on receipt of such compliance report.

To view the complete MARB guidelines and the formats for different certificates and forms required in the process, click on the link below:

https://medicaldialogues.in/pdf_upload/marb-guidelines-225517.pdf

Also Read: NMC Releases Final Establishment of Medical Institutions, Assessment and Rating Regulations 2023, Details