PRMC adds sexual orientation and gender identity questions to registration process

SALISBURY, Md. – A new set of questions are going to be offered at the start of the new year at Peninsula Regional Medical Center to make sure your needs are being met.

These questions may be uncomfortable for some and controversial for others, but PRMC’s goal is to make sure they are enhancing their care for each and every single community member.

Their healthcare team will now ask questions about sexual orientation and gender identity, known as SOGI, to make sure that you are getting the proper care. It’s all being done in the registration process.

PRMC says for the past year an executive steering team has been working on a tool to step up their care when it comes to accuracy. This is a new way to target care since men and women are pre-disposed to different diseases based on gender.

We’re told learning about a person’s SOGI at registration will help deliver person-centered healthcare services, improve care, and patient safety.

Beyond that, their team will create an environment of inclusion. PRMC’s Vice President of Population Health, Dr. Kathryn Fiddler says, “We started with EPIC, our electronic medical record two years ago and we’ve been building the capability to do more and more information gathering about patients to provide that safe and effective care.”

While someone being treated at PRMC may appear to be a female, they could actually have been born a male and that means their medical needs are unique to the male population, such as prostate issues. In order to be equipped for a situation like this, their staff has been trained to start at the very beginning during the registration process and be sensitive to these questions. “So we’ve been doing that training with our entire staff for over the past year, we started with small teams and rolled it out to the entire organization,” Dr. Fiddler tells 47 ABC.

PRMC says their health information is private and protected by law but these questions can make a difference in their healthcare services.

This process is part of the national “Healthy People” initiative by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services to address health disparities. PRMC is just one of many hospitals across the country joining in on this effort.

These questions during the registration process will start in 2019.