News Release

Including sexual orientation & gender identity data in electronic records: What are the next steps?

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

<em>LGBT Health</em>

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LGBT Health, published bimonthly online with Open Access options and in print, brings together the LGBT research, health care, and advocacy communities to address current challenges and improve the health, well-being, and clinical outcomes of LGBT persons. Spanning a broad array of disciplines, the Journal publishes peer-reviewed original research, review articles, clinical reports, case studies, legal and policy perspectives, and much more. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the LGBT Health website. view more 

Credit: ©Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers

New Rochelle, NY, Feb. 11, 2016 -- Appropriate data collection, staff training, LGBT patient education, and nondiscrimination policies are all needed now that the federal government has required that electronic health records (EHR) systems certified under the Meaningful Use Incentive Program be capable of collecting information on patients' sexual orientation (gay, lesbian, or bisexual) and gender identity, "an historic move that will advance health" for the LGBT community, according to an article in LGBT Health, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free to read on the LGBT Health website until March 11, 2016.

The article "Inclusion of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Stage 3 Meaningful Use Guidelines: A Huge Step Forward for LGBT Health" encourages providers to collect sex assigned at birth data as well. Authors Sean Cahill, PhD, Fenway Institute (Boston, MA), Kellan Baker, MPH, Center for American Progress (Washington, DC), Madeline Deutsch, MD, MPH and Joanne Keatley, MSW, University of California at San Francisco, and Harvey Makadon, MD, Fenway Institute and Harvard Medical School (Boston), discuss the importance of recording these data correctly. They also emphasize the need to use these data to provide quality care that meets the unique health needs of subpopulations within the LGBT community and helps to delineate and reduce LGBT health disparities.

"The authors concisely lay out the important opportunity presented by the new requirement for certified EHRs as well as the complex issues that must be considered in eliciting and recording sexual orientation and gender identity data," says LGBT Health Editor-in-Chief William Byne, MD, PhD, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY. "The organizations the authors represent have developed resources to assist providers and clinical staff toward these ends."

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About the Journal

LGBT Health, published bimonthly online with Open Access options and in print, brings together the LGBT research, health care, and advocacy communities to address current challenges and improve the health, well-being, and clinical outcomes of LGBT persons. Spanning a broad array of disciplines, the Journal publishes peer-reviewed original research, review articles, clinical reports, case studies, legal and policy perspectives, and much more. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the LGBT Health website.

About the Publisher

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative medical and biomedical peer-reviewed journals, including Transgender Health, AIDS Patient Care and STDs, AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses, Journal of Women's Health, and Population Health Management. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's more than 80 journals, newsmagazines, and books is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.


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