Background:
California State Legislation SB-179 formally recognizes the nonbinary gender. Certain laboratory tests have reference ranges established by biological male and female sex (sex-specific reference ranges). For these tests, reference ranges for nonbinary individuals are not yet established.
Purpose:
Effective Feb. 25, 2019, for patients with nonbinary gender or unknown sex, and have a laboratory test with sex-specific reference ranges within the UCI laboratory system, the male and female reference ranges will be provided with the test result.
Flagging for tests with sex-specific ranges will occur outside of the overlap between male and female ranges.
Comments regarding reference ranges and abnormal flagging for patients with nonbinary gender or unknown sex will be provided at the bottom of Epic reports:
Comments for Nonbinary Gender or Unknown Sex
Both male and female reference ranges are provided above because a reference range for nonbinary individuals is not yet established. For nonbinary gender or patients with unknown sex, recommend correlation with the most appropriate range.
Results that fall outside the overlap of male and female reference ranges are flagged for patients with nonbinary gender or unknown sex. Correlation with the most appropriate range is recommended to determine if the flagged result is clinically significant.
Critical values within the UCI laboratory system will be flagged as critical for all patients. All other laboratory tests in the UCI laboratory system will be reported as usual for all patients.
Sincerely,
Edwin S. Monuki, MD, PhD
Chair
Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
Scott E. Rudkin, MD, MBA, RDMS, FAAEM, FACEP
Chief Medical Information Officer
Department of Emergency Medicine
William C. Wilson, MD, MA
Chief Medical Officer
UCI Health |
