Dear Colleagues,

I’m pleased to announce that for the 13th consecutive year, UCSF Health has been named an “LGBTQ Healthcare Equality Leader” by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation, the educational arm of the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) civil rights organization.

UCSF Medical Center was the first major hospital in the nation to participate in HRC’s annual Healthcare Equality Index (HEI) and is the only hospital that has done so every year since the HEI’s inception. Well before other health systems and the HEI, UCSF Health extended foundational discrimination protections to LGBTQ individuals, providing nation-leading training in LGBTQ health needs and developing policies and practices to optimize care for LGBTQ people. You can read more about the HEI, UCSF Health’s LGBTQ-centered medical services, and the new UCSF Center for Sexual and Gender Minority Health here.

High-quality care is built on trust between a provider and patient in a safe, welcoming environment, and I am immensely proud of our track record. I also know that we must continuously do better, which is why last year I asked consultant Shane Snowdon, who from 1999 to 2012 was the first full-time director of the UCSF LGBT Resource Center, to initiate a comprehensive review of how UCSF Health...