NATIONAL FOREWORD

This Indian Standard (First Revision) which is identical with ISO 20301 : 2014 ‘Health Informatics — Health cards — General characteristics’ issued by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) was adopted by the Bureau of Indian Standards on the recommendation of the Health Informatics Sectional Committee and approval of the Medical Equipment and Hospital Planning Division Council.

This standard was first published in 2013 and was identical to ISO 20301 : 2006. This revision has been undertaken to align it with the latest version, ISO 20301 : 2014.

The purpose of using machine-readable cards in the field of healthcare is to improve the quality of health service and the efficient use of healthcare resources in the field. The primary consideration in creating this standard has been to improve patient service and patient safety, as well as improve the practical use of healthcare cards in clinical fields.

Standardizing the clinical practice of medicine and defining a standardized healthcare delivery service structure are not included in this standard.

The text of ISO standard has been approved as suitable for publication as an Indian Standard without deviations. Certain conventions are however not identical to those used in Indian Standards. Attention is particularly drawn to the following:

a) Wherever the words ‘International Standard’ appear referring to this standard, they should be read as ‘Indian Standard’.

b) Comma (,) has been used as a decimal marker while in Indian Standards, the current practice is to use a point (.) as the decimal marker.