This European multipart standard defines General Purpose Information Components to be used in standards for information exchange supporting various health specific business requirements. The components defined in this standard are the most commonly needed basic building blocks for such standardization but these components may require further specialisation and be complemented by other objects required for specific purposes not met by these generally useful components. Such standardization using these general purpose information components could be performed both on a European (CEN) level or be done nationally or for specific user communities regionally as well as internationally. This part 1 provides an informative overview of this series of standards and includes rules for using the components defined in the other parts and on conformance claims.