WMA Resolution on Standardisation in Medical Practice and Patient Safety
Adopted by the 194th WMA Council, Bali, Indonesia, April 2013
and by the 64th WMA General Assembly, Fortaleza, Brazil, October 2013
Reaffirmed by the 217th WMA Council, Seoul (online), April 2021
and by the 229th WMA Council, Montevideo, Uruguay, April 2025
Ensuring patient safety and quality of care is at the core of medical practice. For patients, a high level of performance can be a matter of life or death. Therefore, guidance and standardisation in healthcare must be based on solid medical evidence and has to take ethical considerations into account.
Currently, trends in the European Union can be observed to introduce standards in clinical, medical care developed by non-medical standardisation bodies, which neither have the necessary professional ethical and technical competencies nor a public mandate.
The WMA has major concerns about such tendencies which are likely to reduce the quality of care offered, and calls upon governments and other institutions not to leave standardisation of medical care up to non-medical self selected bodies.