Are professional guidelines and regulatory standards fit for purpose?

An explanatory overview of types of standards (data, technical, and professional) and why standards are necessary are presented in this chapter. This is followed by a current world reality view of their selection for adoption and use in order to maintain patient safety, including use for auditing, regulatory, and legal purposes. Many global and national authorities and professional organisations develop and/or make available a large variety of guidelines and regulatory compliance information. These collectively form a high-level infrastructure that many others depend on. This chapter explores purpose, evidence base, and presentation methods and evaluates their fit for purpose status and their operational suitability within this digital era. It is found that many organisational business processes are themselves in need of transformation to enable them to make better use of available technologies, to benefit not only their own operations but also those who make use of their services and the population at large.