The influence of standards on health care delivery

The standardization of medical products and devices is a topic which has recently spawned a large number of articles in various journals. Certain of these are highly informative, and others are not. Accordingly, it is time for the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) to place greater emphasis on the second of its responsibilities and to begin to provide the public with more basic information concerning standardization in the field of health care technology. In order to achieve this, CSA has prepared a series of articles which outline the goals and the major requirements of standards for various types of devices or installations. This is the first in that series, and is intended to provide information on what standards are and how they are intended to influence the health care delivery system.