American Medical Association's House of Delegates adopted a new policy to promote inclusive gender, sex and sexual orientation options in medical documentation for LGBTQ patients, according to a Nov. 19 news release.
The newly introduced policy is one of several the AMA announced on Nov. 19 from the organization's Interim Meeting in San Diego.
To address the gap in information needed on transgender patients, AMA passed the newly amended policy which supports voluntarily including a transgender patient's preferred name and clinically relevant sex specific anatomy in the EHR.
"The newly amended policy reinforces the importance of EHRs that contain inclusive information on transgender patients," said William Kobler, MD, AMA board member, according to the release. "Without this information, transgender patients and their specific healthcare needs cannot be identified or documented, the health disparities they experience cannot be addressed, and the provision of important healthcare services may not be delivered."