Written by RPM has been around for decades, and during that time, inclusive language has expanded and evolved. One area that continues to change is the language we consider appropriate when talking about medical conditions and disabilities.
Based on your suggestions and on the recommendations of the National Center on Disability and Journalism, the National Education Association, and the Stanford Disability Initiative Board, we agree that it’s high time to update the term “Impairments” in RPM. Though this may have been appropriate language years ago when the tab was created, the more widely accepted term today is “Disabilities,” and we plan on changing the name of the tab accordingly in our next version update this fall.
For the first multiple-choice question in last week’s poll, I wanted to know generally whether your company uses the current Impairments tab or not. The results were evenly split: About half of respondents did and half didn’t, with a few saying they didn’t currently utilize it but might later.
A few notable trends also surfaced in the results to the other multiple-choice questions. First, most respondents indicated that adding a “Notes” field to the impairment records would be helpful, and we agree. This could be used for keeping track of details about medical conditions, service providers, primary/secondary designations, or anything else relevant to the client and their diagnosis. We also plan on adding a general “Date” field that could be used to record a start date or diagnosis date, if it’s relevant.
*Please note that each respondent might have selected more than one answer, so this graph does not reflect a one-to-one correspondence between respondents and x-axis answer values.
I also asked how likely you would be to use a “Medications” section to record clients’ medicines. The results of this were pretty clear: This section would not be widely used. See the full breakdown of results here:
Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond to this poll, even if you weren’t interested in the Impairments tab! Keep an eye out for more polls as we narrow down our projects for the 6.1.0 upgrade coming this fall.