ISO/TS 14265:2011 defines a set of high-level categories of purposes for which personal health information can be processed. This is in order to provide a framework for classifying the various specific purposes that can be defined and used by individual policy domains (e.g. healthcare organizations, regional health authorities, jurisdictions, countries) as an aid to the consistent management of information in the delivery of health care services and for the communication of electronic health records across organizational and jurisdictional boundaries.

The scope of application of ISO/TS 14265:2011 is limited to Personal Health Information as defined in ISO 27799, information about an identifiable person that relates to the physical or mental health of the individual, or to provision of health services to the individual.