Healthcare Product Description Standardization Guidelines for Product Short Descriptions

The Canada Healthcare Product Description Standardization Guidelines for product short descriptions are now available for use by GS1 Canada members.

Developed by the GS1 Canada Healthcare Product Description Standardization Work Group, these guidelines provide a formula for healthcare providers to standardize the short descriptions of medical and surgical products in their databases, ultimately enhancing the efficiency of clinical operations and procurement processes. By adopting these guidelines, clinical, financial and operational departments within healthcare organizations will have access to standardized and improved data accuracy in their individual databases and systems.

The long-term objective of these voluntary guidelines is for standardized short product descriptions to be created by the supplier, with no modifications required by healthcare providers as the product moves through the healthcare supply chain – from point of manufacture to the point of patient care. These guidelines are an important step to achieving this goal, enabling hospitals to begin aligning their systems to accommodate data in a consistent, standardized format.

GS1 Canada Members: Access the Canada Healthcare Product Description Standardization Guidelines.
Become a GS1 Canada member.