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Design Guidance – Date Display (PDF format)

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Design Guidance – Date and Time Input (PDF format)

Guidance – Date Input and Display

These Design Guides are two of nine documents relating to patient demographic data which have been adopted by the Information Standards Board for Health and Social Care (ISB) as a full standard for implementation in healthcare systems. Further information can be found at Information Standards Board.

Introduction

The Design Guidance – Date Display document provides you with guidance and recommendations for displaying single, precise dates in clinical applications. It enables unambiguous date display, while enhancing patient safety and clinical application usability, by eliminating confusion between day, month and year elements.

Dates can be displayed in short and long formats. The short format is commonly used as it prevents international users from confusing day and month elements and presents the dates in a concise, easily readable and unambiguous form.

The Design Guidance – Date and Time Input document provides you with guidance and recommendations for entering date information in clinical applications.

The accurate entry of dates is a fundamental function within clinical applications, and, in many cases, has safety implications for patients within clinical and administrative processes. The guidance given enables unambiguous date entry, while enhancing patient safety and clinical application usability by:

• Providing a clear mechanism for guiding the user towards entry of an accurate value, therefore reducing human error
• Providing efficient input controls for the user to enter values in a fast and easy manner