Overview

The Sex and Gender Working Group (SGWG) is a collaborative national forum focused on advancing and modernizing gender, sex, and sexual orientation (GSSO) information practices within Canada’s digital health ecosystem. Since 2019, the group has supported coordination, knowledge sharing, and collaboration among jurisdictions, health organizations, researchers, standards bodies, vendors, and people with lived and living experience. Through discussion of standards alignment, implementation considerations, emerging evidence, and policy developments, the SGWG aims to promote inclusive, respectful, clinically meaningful, and interoperable approaches to modernizing GSSO information practices in the Canadian digital health ecosystem.

This work matters because the current system can be harmful for people with diverse gender and sexual orientation identities. ; Modernizing information practices supports equity-oriented and gender-affirming care, improves interoperability and data quality, and enables the appropriate use of clinical and administrative data across healthcare settings.

Ultimately, the group supports practical approaches to modernizing GSSO information practices across Canada.

Who it’s for

Intended for jurisdictions, clinicians, vendors, policymakers, researchers, standards organizations, health information professionals, educators, and community partners involved in Canada’s digital health ecosystem who develop, implement, govern, research, or use sex, gender, sexual orientation, and related information within digital health systems.

Version en français à venir bientôt.