{"title":"Current practice and recommendations for managing transgender patient data in clinical laboratories in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland.","authors":"Sophie Hepburn, Devon Buchanan, Seán J Costelloe","doi":"10.1177/00045632231195484","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Transgender people may avoid seeking medical care due to previous negative experiences and fear of discrimination. Clinical laboratories can contribute to a poor patient experience and clinical outcome when the design and functionality of laboratory information management systems (LIMS) do not consider the needs of transgender patients. This survey aimed to capture current practices in United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland clinical laboratories concerning how transgender patient data and test requests are managed throughout the total testing process.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>An anonymous survey was distributed to clinical laboratory professionals in November 2021. Thirty-three questions covered how gender variables are recorded for transgender patients and used to inform gender-specific calculations, test access, and reference intervals (RIs).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Of the 66 respondents, 70% were based in laboratories in England, with a majority of laboratories having ISO 15189 accreditation and processing 1000-10,000 blood samples daily. Eighty-five percent stated that their LIMS had a single field recording sex or gender information. Forty-three percent did not limit test access based on gender, but 68% did not append RIs for patients with unknown or indeterminate gender.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This survey was the first to quantify how clinical laboratories manage sex and gender information and report results for transgender and non-binary patients, and details several key recommendations based on the survey responses.</p>","PeriodicalId":8005,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Clinical Biochemistry","volume":" ","pages":"98-106"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Annals of Clinical Biochemistry","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00045632231195484","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2023/8/30 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"MEDICAL LABORATORY TECHNOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: Transgender people may avoid seeking medical care due to previous negative experiences and fear of discrimination. Clinical laboratories can contribute to a poor patient experience and clinical outcome when the design and functionality of laboratory information management systems (LIMS) do not consider the needs of transgender patients. This survey aimed to capture current practices in United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland clinical laboratories concerning how transgender patient data and test requests are managed throughout the total testing process.
Methods: An anonymous survey was distributed to clinical laboratory professionals in November 2021. Thirty-three questions covered how gender variables are recorded for transgender patients and used to inform gender-specific calculations, test access, and reference intervals (RIs).
Results: Of the 66 respondents, 70% were based in laboratories in England, with a majority of laboratories having ISO 15189 accreditation and processing 1000-10,000 blood samples daily. Eighty-five percent stated that their LIMS had a single field recording sex or gender information. Forty-three percent did not limit test access based on gender, but 68% did not append RIs for patients with unknown or indeterminate gender.
Conclusions: This survey was the first to quantify how clinical laboratories manage sex and gender information and report results for transgender and non-binary patients, and details several key recommendations based on the survey responses.
期刊介绍:
Annals of Clinical Biochemistry is the fully peer reviewed international journal of the Association for Clinical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine.
Annals of Clinical Biochemistry accepts papers that contribute to knowledge in all fields of laboratory medicine, especially those pertaining to the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of human disease. It publishes papers on clinical biochemistry, clinical audit, metabolic medicine, immunology, genetics, biotechnology, haematology, microbiology, computing and management where they have both biochemical and clinical relevance. Papers describing evaluation or implementation of commercial reagent kits or the performance of new analysers require substantial original information. Unless of exceptional interest and novelty, studies dealing with the redox status in various diseases are not generally considered within the journal''s scope. Studies documenting the association of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with particular phenotypes will not normally be considered, given the greater strength of genome wide association studies (GWAS). Research undertaken in non-human animals will not be considered for publication in the Annals.
Annals of Clinical Biochemistry is also the official journal of NVKC (de Nederlandse Vereniging voor Klinische Chemie) and JSCC (Japan Society of Clinical Chemistry).