Gender Affirmative Healthcare Workgroup: Creating Inclusive Care for All

The Transgender and Gender Affirmative Healthcare Workgroup at Mosaic recently concluded more than 18 months of work to ensure that Mosaic serves all community members in a welcoming and inclusive way. The workgroup includes more than twenty employees from across the system, all serving in many different roles. Each of the workgroup members are fully committed to helping Mosaic meet the need for transgender healthcare in Central Oregon.

We acknowledge that we still have more to learn and refine to better support our transgender community. And, we wanted to share the important work this passionate group has accomplished to date.

Highlights of Workgroup Accomplishments:

• Transgender Clinical Care: One of our group’s first actions was to tackle the intricacies of transgender clinical care. Several of our providers joined the 12-month TransECHO project out of the Fenway Institute. Several providers also joined the Central Oregon Trans Healthcare Coalition.
• Gender Affirmative Forms and Charting: At the same time, we began revising our new patient registration forms to be gender affirmative. We also began implementing the Sexual Orientation Gender Identity (SOGI) fields in EPIC (our electronic patient charting system).
• Resource Lists: Group members created community resources lists and smart phrases for our youth and adult transgender patients. To access the resource lists, click here: Transgender Youth Resources and Transgender Adult Resources.
• Staff Training: Transgender healthcare and support is new to many of us. In support of learning for all of our staff and as part of our Service Excellence Program, training was offered for all staff (completed this past summer). Training will be held quarterly for new staff moving forward. This training is intended to help staff understand the positive outcomes of providing gender affirmative care. Also covered in the training are preferred terminology and use and transgender identity concepts.
• Pride Participation: In order to support the general LGBTQ+ community we have participated in the Bend Pride event for the last two years. We participated in the Prineville Pride event for the first time this year. We plan to continue our annual presence at these events. We hope to create awareness in the community about our increased focus on gender affirmative healthcare.
• Community Education: Our commitment to advancing community understanding about transgender population needs led us to organize a City Club of Central Oregon forum on this issue. Our own Ellie Millan, PNP and Mosaic’s Pediatric Medical Director served as a panelist. The forum was extremely successful, with over 170 community leaders and members attending.

Looking Ahead:

As the 18-month workgroup effort came to a close, group members remain committed. Efforts will continue to support our gender affirmative clinical knowledge and refine our vast number of patient documents to be more inclusive. We will also continue to work on staff-related gender affirmative supports such as HR paperwork and optional usage of pronouns in staff email signatures. We are grateful to the many staff members who have supported this effort and to the entire Mosaic team for taking part in this learning journey together. Together, we are truly working to provide quality care for all.