What it is
What STANAG 2348 covers
STANAG 2348 is the NATO standardization agreement that gives force to AMedP-8.2, Edition B, the Allied medical publication for the Basic Military Medical Record. A STANAG is not itself a technical specification: it is the agreement by which NATO nations commit to implement one, and the actual content sits in the Allied Publication it covers. This STANAG responds to a stated interoperability requirement: when a patient of one allied nation is treated in a military hospital of another nation, "a military medical record will be prepared for each patient." "This record will accompany the patient upon transfer between hospitals, and will be forwarded to the patient's national military medical authority when the patient is discharged from the hospital or dies." Where a field medical card or patient evacuation tag under STANAG 2132 has also been prepared, "it will accompany the military medical record." The record's own fields and content are AMedP-8.2's subject, not this cover's.
This is Edition 6, dated 15 January 2018. It supersedes STANAG 2348, Edition 5.
Who ratifies it, and how it takes effect
The mechanism that matters here: a STANAG binds a nation, not a supplier. "Participating nations agree to implement the following standard": AMedP-8.2, Edition B, and "the national responses are recorded in the NATO Standardization Document Database (NSDD)." Once ratified, "this STANAG is effective upon receipt and ready to be used by the implementing nations and NATO bodies," and it "is implemented when a nation has issued the necessary orders or instructions to authorities and units concerned putting the procedures detailed in this agreement into effect." After implementation, "the nations have to work continually to enhance the STANAG and send the proposals to the Custodian." A supplier meets AMedP-8.2 only where a contract or a tender brings it in by name, not because this STANAG exists on its own.
Reporting and review
Nations report their effective implementation "using the form in Annex H to AAP-03(J)"; partner nations report adoption "using the form in Annex G to AAP-03(J)." "This STANAG is to be reviewed at least once every three years," with the result "recorded within the NSDD." Nations and NATO bodies may propose changes at any time to the tasking authority, and any change is processed during that review.
STANAG 2348 also names four other related documents, without making any of them a requirement of its own: MC 0326/3 (NATO's principles and policies of medical support), STANAG 1059 (letter codes for geographical entities), STANAG 2061 (disposition of allied patients by medical installations), and STANAG 2132 (documentation for initial medical treatment and evacuation, which itself covers AMedP-8.1).
How it's evaluated
No certification exists here, and the document names none. What it describes is a national ratification, implementation and review cycle run through NATO's own machinery, not an audit against this STANAG. Whether a nation's medical record practice matches the current edition of AMedP-8.2 is a matter for that nation's own military standards and any customer's quality clause, not a certification scheme.