36 Academic and operational collaboration to advance health equity in sexual and gender minority care

<h3>Description</h3> The stigma and discrimination the 7.6% of adults identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender faces can lead to poorer health outcomes. Prior to 12/2023, fewer than 8% of patients had their sexual orientation (SO) or pronouns documented in the electronic health records at Northwestern Medicine (NM). There was an opportunity to enhance processes around data capture for patients that identify as LGBT in an effort to identify disparities and prioritize improvement work. Through a partnership between the Northwestern University (NU) ReACH Lab and the NM Quality and Operations teams, NM was provided the expertise of NU faculty to implement enhanced screening and documentation leading to the identification of health disparities for LGBT patients. These methods included staff interviews, patient feedback, staff education, and Electronic Health Record (EHR) updates. Within four months of implementing new tools and processes to capture this information, the capture rate of SO and gender identity (GI) nearly doubled from 7.1% to 13.6% and 10.9% to 20.7% (table 1), respectively. With this successful collaboration, the NU and NM teams continue to partner towards expansion across the health system and projects to address disparities.