Sex and Gender

Hello Sex and Gender Working Group members, I’m excited to share that I am a candidate for Digital Health Canada’s Board of Directors and I would be honoured to have your support. All current Digital Health Canada members are eligible to vote between May 5-16, 2025. As a proud co-chair of the Sex and Gender Working Group, I believe strongly in embedding equity, inclusivity and innovation into our digital health systems. I am deeply committed to ensuring that traditionally underrepresented voices and communities are included in the digital health conversation. This is one of my primary motivations for wanting to join the Digital Health Canada Board of Directors. With over 15 years of experience in pan-Canadian digital health, data standards development and health data analytics, I have a unique understanding of Digital Health Canada members’ needs across the country. I also believe strongly in empowering the next generation of digital health leaders and ensuring that they have the tools and resources that they need to be successful. I believe that my passion, skills and experience could help drive Digital Health Canada’s strategic goals and priorities forward, particularly around the organization’s strategic goal of Acting for Equity. Digital Health Canada members, I would be honoured to have your support when voting opens on Monday! If you’d like to learn more about me and my vision for the Digital Health Canada Board of Directors, please check out my candidate bio .... You can also find me on .... I am very proud to be a part of this community and am grateful for your support. Have a great day! Shannon O'Connor Manager, Data Standards Canadian Institute for Health Information

Forwarding a message about an open survey that may be of interest Hello! I hope this e-mail finds you well. I am sharing the 2025 Sex Now survey with you all. This survey is administered by the Community-Based Research Centre (CBRC), which promotes the health of people of diverse sexualities and genders through research and intervention development. Sex Now is Canada’s largest and longest-running health survey for 2S/LGBTQ+ people today. Participation in Sex Now helps the CBRC collect vital data that shapes public health policies and community services. For the first time, the Sex Now survey is open to 2S/LGBTQ+ people of all genders. This year’s survey includes questions about organ and tissue donation, immigration experiences, gambling, and access to gender affirming care. In a culture of rising anti-2S/LGBTQ+ hate, the survey will also feature questions about the impacts of stigma and discrimination in relation to our social, mental, and sexual well-being. If you would like to participate, you can fill out Sex Now 2025 .... The survey is available to be taken in English, French, and Spanish, and takes about 30 minutes to complete. If you are willing to share this e-mail with your networks, that would be most appreciated! Thanks,

Hi The School of Health Information Science at the University of Victoria is hosting a 3 day Virtual Workshop on Health Information Exchange (HIE) standards. The workshop will be held over 3 days from 4pm till 6:30pm Pacific Time on Monday April 28th to Wednesday April 30th. Guest speakers from across Canada will be presenting on a variety of HIE-related topics, including the shared pan-Canadian interoperability roadmap, CIHI standards, Health Infoway standards, and HL7 FHIR. There is no cost to attend. For more information and to see the schedule of talks, please go ... Thanks, Karen

Hello everyone, The slide decks from this month's meeting are now posted to the Documents folder here: infocentral.infoway-inforoute.ca/en/resources/docs/sex-gender/2025-sessions Have a great weekend! Thank you for your continued participation. Shannon

Hello, The HL7 International May 2025 Ballot (Anatomical Inventories and Person Characteristics) is now open, and in this ... you will find a compressed folder with an Index spreadsheet to allow access to ballot content, either as a PDF (included in the package) or with a link to the HL7 website. Please submit your comments by April 30, 2025. This ballot contains significant information related to anatomical Inventories and your feedback is needed to help ensure that updated HL7 standards enable quality healthcare for all people. If you wish to comment, please follow one of the paths documented below. Step-by-step guides for each path will be available .... 1. Direct Submission - You can directly provide comments by submitting them directly to Infoway via the comment spreadsheet that you will find at InfoCentral. Directly submitting your comments means that the name on your account will be linked to the comment and if the HL7 committee needs clarification or has questions, they could contact you directly. 2. Group Discussions - You can participate in the Sex and Gender Working Group (SGWG) discussion via the SGWG forum at InfoCentral. Comments posted in the forum will be submitted to Infoway as SGWG comments rather than as those of an individual member. If you use this method, you should be aware that it would still be possible for someone to read through the SGWG forum postings to link your comment to your InfoCentral account. Any questions from the HL7 group would come back to the SGWG as a whole for a response rather than to the individual who originally submitted them. 3. Private Email - You can send your comments via email to [email protected]. Emailed comments will be added into a spreadsheet and attributed to “anonymous.” After being entered into the spreadsheet, the original emails will be deleted. We will not be able to relink you to your comment, and any questions from the HL7 group would be brought to the SGWG as a whole for a response. If you have any questions, please post them to the SGWG forum. Please feel free to share this message with others. Best Regards, Karen