Ideas That Work: Aqua Wristbands Make Misgendering Virtually Impossible

Practical pearls from your colleagues

Being correctly identified and addressed by healthcare staff is every patient’s right. Unfortunately, it’s fairly common for transgender and gender-diverse patients to be misgendered. Dignity Health Saint Francis Memorial Hospital (SFMH) in San Francisco goes to great lengths to make sure it never happens at their facility. And while referring to patients appropriately is important for all facilities, there’s an extra incentive for SFMH to serve as the prime example of how to care for a gender-diverse patient population. Since its launch in 2016, the Gender Institute at SFMH has been delivering compassionate, high-quality and affordable health services to gender-diverse patients and their families.*

A subtle but effective idea you can take from SFMH to help ensure misgendering doesn’t happen at your own facility: colored bracelets. SFMH offers all patients — regardless of appearance, age or reason for seeking care — an aqua-colored wristband that spells out the pronouns and preferred name they’d like providers to use when communicating with them. “By offering each patient an aqua band to identify their pronouns and/or preferred name, we ensure that we are addressing all our patients appropriately throughout their time at SFMH,” says Jaimie Weber, MBA-HM, MSN-Ed, RN, PHN, NEA-BC, CCRN, CNOR, nurse manager of perioperative services at the hospital. While the bracelets have been well-received by staff, it’s the patients who seem to really appreciate the effort SFMH makes to provide truly equitable care to everyone. “Just the idea that someone thought to offer me a wristband showed me how much staff here care about getting it right … and made me feel like I made the right choice in coming here,” wrote one patient. OSM

*Editor’s Note: SFMH would like to recognize the vital role the Saint Francis Foundation has played in the growth of its Gender Institute. Over the past two years, the Foundation has supported the Gender Institute’s mission with over $7 million in grant funds. Without the financial support of donated grant funds, the growth of the robotics program and the gender-affirmation service line would not have been possible.