The healthcare industry throughout the world has been taking various steps to prevent medical error and inhospital infections and to promote patients safety. In addition, it has recently been globally recognized as important to exactly identify the types of drugs and medical instruments and materials in manufacturing, logistics, use for diagnosis and treatment and collection of these products to be able to prevent errors and increase the efficiency of healthcare services. Responding to these situation, GS1 has held international GS1 healthcare conferences in cooperation with healthcare organizations all over the world.
In October 2008, the GS1 Healthcare Conference took place in Tokyo, Japan for the first time in Asia. At this conference, there were lectures on activities for standardization by regulatory authorities and industry groups from various countries and on the pioneering attempts by medical institutions and medical equipment manufacturers. Reports on the traceability management system for steel instruments adopted by Japanese medical institutions and on endoscopes developed by Japanese manufacturers were highly rated by participants. Considering that this international conference held in Tokyo greatly increased interest in GS1's healthcare activities throughout the Japanese healthcare industry, GS1 Healthcare Japan was founded in May 2009.

The goal of GS1 Healthcare Japan is to achieve the patient safety by preventing medical errors using GS1 Standards. Traceability in healthcare, efficient logistics and administrative work will also be realized in this effort. The council is going to carry out various projects using product identification with barcodes, 2-D symbols and RFID to promote standardization and implementation, in close cooperation with trade associations, government offices and other organizations. It hopes to contribute to the overall development of healthcare industry. As of July 2009, GS1 Healthcare Japan has 40 corporate members, 12 individual members, 13 trade associations and 13 supporting members.