Abstract
Study Objective
Documentation of sexual orientation (SO) and gender identity (GI) is crucial to identify
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth and perform meaningful research to improve
health disparities in this community. As a result, some electronic medical records
(EMRs) have incorporated SO and GI into part of the provider's workflow for documentation.
We aimed to evaluate the effect this modification has had on the frequency of SO and
GI documentation.
Design, Setting, Participants, Interventions, and Main Outcome Measures
This was a retrospective chart review of patient encounters from an outpatient pediatric
and adolescent gynecology clinical practice. The rate of documentation of SO and GI
were compared between encounters that took place before the implementation of the
EMR modification and those that took place after. Additionally, we examined rates
of GI and SO documentation according to visit type and patient race.
Results
A statistically significant increase in the frequency of SO and GI documentation after
the EMR modification was detected. The documentation rate of SO increased from 10/73
(13.7%) to 32/73 (45.1%) (P < .01) and GI documentation rate went from 1.4% to 46.5% (P < .01) after the EMR changes were implemented. SO or GI was most commonly documented
in social history (90%). There were no differences in documentation on the basis of
race or type of encounter.
Conclusion
Including a specific tab for SO and GI in the EMR significantly increased the frequency
of SO and GI documentation. Despite this increase, frequency of documentation remained
at less than 50%, emphasizing the need for further improvement.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: December 14, 2020
Footnotes
The authors indicate no conflicts of interest.
Identification
Copyright
© 2020 North American Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology. Published by Elsevier Inc.
