The COVID-19 pandemic brought deep divisions and attacks on the most vulnerable in our nation, including women in need of comprehensive reproductive health care. Maternal mortality in the U.S. has worsened over the last 22 years and is likely to deteriorate further as dozens of U.S. states expand laws that criminalize abortion care. Through research expertise, the University of Washington Access, Delivered team aims to improve access to abortion pills via telehealth services across many states, so more people can receive the critical care they need wherever they are, whenever they need it.
Our mission is to employ reliable, high-quality research to bring innovative services in abortion care to light, alter restrictive abortion policies in the U.S., and support primary care’s rapid adoption of novel abortion health care services.
Provider Toolkit
This Provider Toolkit offers a step-by-step guide for initiating a modern medication abortion service within your primary care practice. It provides information on setting up the service, patient-centered standards of care, and resources for understanding federal and state regulations on abortion services.
The COVID-19 pandemic has dispelled the myth that physical clinics are needed to safely provide early abortion care. Primary care and other clinicians have a unique opportunity to shape the future of abortion access in the United States by using “no test” protocols and providing service via telemedicine with pills mailed directly to patients.
Click Here to Access and Download the Provider ToolkitWhat Providers are Saying:
Please submit your questions about the Toolkit“Thank you very much for putting together this toolkit! I am a pediatrician who has focused on adolescent health (patients 10-25). Although I have referred patients for abortions, I have never prescribed medication abortion. I am so frustrated and angered by the recent legislative developments that I have been looking into providing online medication abortion services. I have seen firsthand the difficulties people have accessing abortions. Your toolkit was extremely informative and I appreciate all the work you have put into it, for me as a provider and for our society at large. I plan to contact the organizations listed in the toolkit (Plan C, Aid Access, etc.) to see if there is an opportunity to help.”
Our Impact
Publications
Our peer-reviewed research has already shown that:
- U.S.-based primary care clinicians can safely and efficiently offer telehealth medication abortion services.
- A single clinician can serve an entire state of patients requesting online abortion services
- Telehealth abortion helps to reduce geographic barriers and improve access to abortion. This study was used as evidence to make the case for the U.S. FDA to remove restrictions on abortion pills.
In the News
- Ms. Magazine, How Telemedicine Startups Are Revolutionizing Abortion Health Care in the U.S.
- FOX 13 Seattle, New UW study on effective dispensing of abortion medications via telehealth services
- The Washington Post, Explainer: What’s next for abortion pills after the fall of Roe
- Associated Press, Research shows medication abortions are safe
- Time, Inside the Effort to Promote Abortion Pills For a Post-Roe America
- FiveThirtyEight, Better Birth Control Hasn’t Made Abortion Obsolete
- Healthline, Getting Abortion Pills Online: What to Know About Plan C
- The Conversation, How primary care is poised to support reproductive health and abortion in the post-Roe era
- The Seattle Times, Abortion is a health care issue, not a legal one — allow pills by mail
How You Can Help
The recent stripping of the constitutional right to an abortion in the United States calls for urgent, high-quality research that will informs public policies that reduce barriers to care and improve access to abortion in the United States.
The University of Washington Access, Delivered team – part of the UW Department of Family Medicine – has partnered with an advocacy organization, Plan C, local clinics, and clinicians in 20 states to support the expansion of telehealth medication abortion services across the country. Your generous gift can help fund this critical abortion research.
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