Comparing Electronic Health Record Domains' Utility to Identify Transgender Patients.

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Transgender Health
• Patient Identification

Background:

• Identifying transgender patients in electronic health records (EHRs) is crucial for equitable care.
• Previous studies explored diagnostic codes and demographic data for this purpose.
• Optimizing patient identification methods within EHRs remains an ongoing challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the effectiveness of International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Revision (ICD-10) diagnostic codes versus demographic data in identifying transgender patients.
• To determine which readily available EHR data points best capture the transgender population.

Main Methods:

• A de-identified patient database from a single EHR was queried for ICD-10 codes and transgender-specific demographic data.
• Data spanned from January 2011 to April 2019.
• Analysis focused on unique EHRs identified by each data type and their overlap.

Main Results:

• ICD-10 codes alone identified 63.05% of transgender patient EHRs, while demographics identified 14.59%.
• A combination of both methods identified 22.36% of records.
• Among demographic-identified patients, trans masculine individuals were most prevalent (53.26%).

Conclusions:

• ICD-10 diagnostic codes are more effective than demographic data alone for identifying transgender patients in EHRs.
• Neither method alone captures the entire transgender population; a combined approach is superior.
• Further research is needed to improve demographic data collection for gender minority populations.