Trump Orders the VA to Scrub Veteran Medical Record Note Templates
The Trump administration is changing the way medical professionals at the Department of Veterans Affairs can chart in Veterans electronic health record by removing prohibited language.
I never thought I would see the day where the government would dictate what health care providers could put in the medical records of their patients, but that is exactly what’s happening in at least one health system within the Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 2 right now. VISN 2 covers New York and New Jersey and includes VA hospitals and outpatient clinics in dozens of locations including Manhattan, Brooklyn, East Orange, Buffalo, and Syracuse.
Health providers at at least one location within VISN2 have been instructed to remove certain words in templated notes within the electronic health record, according to an email I’ve reviewed. All staff have been instructed to review all templated medical record notes in their areas and remove the following references:
Gender
Transgender
Trans
Cisgender
Person, when used as an alternative to man or woman, as in “pregnant person”
Non-binary
The instructions do not say whether a health care provider can use these terms when manually entering notes in a patient’s chart as opposed to using templated notes. Nor do we have specifics about what percentage of charting is done using templated notes. What I do know is that removing these terms is going to have a chilling impact on provider-patient care, and might run afoul of certain questions providers are required to ask veterans under law - like questions about sexual assault.
They are trying to erase the identities of Veterans. The same Veterans who need medical attention because they volunteered to protect the rights of those who voted for this administration.
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~AG
Photo: Allison Gill/MSW Media
The VA is the gold standard for inclusive, thorough, evidence-based care. Providers and staff of the VA are passionate professionals who make less than their private practice peers out of a sense of duty to care for our vet population. Vets need to call their reps and senators to stand up for the VA and its providers.
I live in Syracuse and my fiancé is a critical care doctor — we can’t even have conversations about the chaos occurring because he gets so angry and upset. This new turn of events would push him over the edge. I wonder when all this will stop, but those criminal abominations are just getting started. Shame on them and their awful treatment of people who deserve and have earned respect.