How often should a man get breast and cervical cancer screenings? Should a woman get screened for prostate cancer? The answer to these questions and more depends on knowing if your patient is transgender.
The Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles estimated the transgender population in the U.S. to be 1.4 million in 2016. A recent study in Minnesota of 9th and 11th graders found nearly 3% of students identify as transgender or gender non-conforming.
When it comes to healthcare, are we ready to meet these patients' needs? Several cases where a transgender or gender-expansive person was not properly identified, or their provider simply was not aware of issues regarding transgender individuals, have been in the news lately.
My county hospital is rolling out changes to our health information management system (HIMS) to try to capture this complete information on all of our patients, including transgender and gender-expansive patients. These questions are called SOGIE, which stands for Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Expression. At intake, we ask:
- What is the sex listed on your original birth certificate?
- What is your gender identity?
- What is your sexual orientation?
Our initial goal is to capture 10% of our patient population with rolling increases as we move forward. In the hopes of meeting all of our patients' needs, we will ask these questions just one time over the patient's lifetime. However, the patient can initiate changes at any time in the future.