A federal agency that certifies the use of electronic medical records is requiring the creators of the computerized systems ensure such data as patients' sexual orientation and gender identity can be easily shared among health care providers, governmental agencies, and researchers.
It is a first step toward creating a systemized way to securely capture and exchange the SOGI data among various entities. The federal Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT published on July 9 version 2 of the United States Core Data for Interoperability, known as USCDI v2.
It sets the standards nationwide for health information exchange and establishes the baseline for what data is commonly exchanged across care settings for a wide range of uses.