Identity SmartTool Style Guide

This section offers guidance to Builders who develop SmartLinks, SmartPhrases, SmartText and SmartLists (SmartTools) intended for inclusion in Connect Care standard documentation templates or summative documentation objects.

AHS is committed to honouring patient preferences respecting how they are referred to. Pronouns can trigger assumptions about things like gender identity and relationships status.

Identity SmartTools are text automations that help manage pronouns and other identity and gender-revealing information in prose documentation. Pronouns are used to refer to patients when entry of a fully identifying name (e.g., Firstname Lastname) is not required or appropriate.

Name

A number of SmartLinks can be used to pull variants of a patient's name into text automations. AHS requires that patients be asked about their preferred first name at all registration and transition events. When a preferred name is provided that differs from the patient's legal first name, this is considered the "affirmed name" and is to be used in all clinical documentation and communications (see Norms-Compliant SmartTools).

Common SmartLinks like "FNAME" (first name) and "NAME" (full name) automatically use any affirmed name, if provided. "PREFNAME" can be used as it ALWAYS pulls the patient's affirmed name. Use of "LEGALNAME" should be restricted to the very few situations, such as billing or insurance claims, where an affirmed name may not be accepted by the recipient.

Prefixes

In general, use of name prefixes (e.g., "Mr.", Ms.", as pulled by the "@M@" SmartLink) should be avoided, especially when these are generated automatically from other chart data such as administrative gender.

Patients can indicate a prefix preference. When this is explicitly requested, registration clerks use a "patient prefix" field that is pulled with the "PTTITLE" SmartLink, which should be used in preference to the "M" SmartLink.

Suffixes and Honourifics

Although academic (degrees) and suffice (e.g., "Jr", "Sr") information can be provided during registration of patient demographics, this information is rarely clinically important and is not supported with system SmartLinks.

Pronouns

Pronouns (e.g., "he", "she", "they") are frequently used in clinical documentation. SmartLink and SmartPhrase text automations allow pronouns to be automatically generated for use in templated text blocks. These are among the most frequently used SmartTools.

Unfortunately, Connect Care's default SmartTools generate pronouns without full consideration of information patients can provide about their gender identity. More importantly, the default tools do not reflect any pronoun preferences that a patient may have provided. Preferred prose-friendly SmartTools have been developed to comply with AHS SOGIE Guidelines. These are listed elsewhere and are used in all Connect Care approved SmartText and SmartPhrases.

Gender Identity

AHS supports all patients who wish to provide gender identity, pronoun preference and/or sexual identity information during clinical encounters. AHS commits to using that information to ensure that clinical communications are respectful and inclusive.

Prose-friendly inclusive identity SmartTools have been developed so that any patient-provided information is used, as appropriate, to help shape clinical documentation. These should be used, where available, in preference to default foundation SmartTools. The Connect Care tools include standardized identity affirmation SmartPhrases (e.g., IDENTITYSOGIE) that can be used in summative clinical documentation.