EDITORIAL STANDARD · VERSION 1.0
Standards for expert-led
health content.
The standard the system enforces by default, published in full so a reviewer can read it before a call rather than asking for it after one. Written to be adopted or adapted — if it is useful to you without ever speaking to us, take it.
Why publish it
Organisations do not avoid letting their experts speak because they doubt the expertise. They avoid it because nobody can tell them, in advance and in writing, what will stop a piece from becoming a problem. This is that document.
It is an editorial standard, not a compliance certification. Adopting it does not make anyone compliant with anything, and it is not legal advice. It governs how content gets made — which is the part that is usually left implicit and then argued about afterwards.
01Scope
- Content is education, never individualised advice, and says so where a reader might reasonably mistake one for the other.
- An expert speaks inside their certification. A board-certified emergency physician presents emergency management and when to seek definitive care; they do not present specialist treatment decisions outside that certification.
- Where a topic sits at the edge of scope, the piece names the edge rather than stepping over it quietly.
- No piece implies a clinical relationship with the viewer, and none substitutes for one.
02Sourcing and evidence
- Every factual claim is labelled before production: established, emerging, professional opinion, or unverified and needing a source.
- Claims align to current guidance from the relevant professional body, and the source is recorded so a reviewer can check it rather than take it on trust.
- A citation nobody has read is not a citation. Anything a contributor has not personally reviewed is marked as needing verification and does not ship until it is.
- Where the evidence is genuinely mixed or preliminary, the piece says so. Certainty is not added for the sake of a cleaner script.
03Uncertainty and limits
- Important limitations stay visible. Removing a caveat because it complicates the message is treated as an accuracy failure, not an editing decision.
- Where reasonable experts disagree, the piece acknowledges it rather than presenting one position as settled.
- Rates of harm, benefit and risk are given with the denominator they were calculated from.
04Patient privacy
- No protected health information enters the workflow at any stage. Contributors capture the teaching point, never the case.
- A case is treated as identifying if the person in it would recognise themselves. Changing a name, an age or a location is not de-identification.
- Examples are fictional, composite, or used with documented permission. Permission is recorded, not remembered.
- The tooling supporting this workflow is not HIPAA-compliant infrastructure and no business associate agreement is offered. That is by design: the workflow is built so patient data never needs to be in it.
05Honest presentation
- A hook may not promise more than the piece delivers. If the content cannot support the opening line, the opening line changes.
- No manufactured urgency, invented deadlines, or fear used as a distribution tactic.
- The teaching has to stand on its own. If removing the hook destroys the value, there was no teaching in it.
- Accessibility is part of accuracy: captions and on-screen text so the piece works without sound.
06Review stages
- Concepts submitted before filming, so a direction can be stopped cheaply rather than re-shot.
- Scripts to the reviewing team for clinical accuracy before production.
- Draft review before publication, with the source list and the claim labels attached — reviewers should not have to reverse-engineer a finished video.
- The reviewing organisation holds final say on clinical accuracy. What it does not hold is the ability to require overstated certainty or the removal of a relevant caveat for messaging reasons.
07Corrections and disclosure
- Corrections are issued publicly and promptly when something is wrong, in the same channel as the original, without waiting to be asked.
- Commercial relationships and conflicts of interest are disclosed on every asset they touch.
- Licence status and credentials are stated accurately and verifiable on request. A credential claimed in a bio is not a credential.
08What this standard does not do
- It does not make an organisation compliant with any law or regulation, and it is not legal advice.
- It does not replace clinical review by qualified people inside the organisation.
- It does not guarantee reach, engagement or any campaign outcome. It governs how content is made, not how it performs.
Using this in your organisation?
Adopt it, adapt it, or send it to whoever owns risk. If you want the workflow that enforces it rather than the document that describes it, that is a conversation worth having.
How this works for organisationsVersion 1.0 · September 2026