Family Medicine Research Day

Family Medicine physicians provide contraceptive, prenatal, and obstetric care; however, within our department physicians had not historically prescribed abortion medications to clinic patients. Early abortion care is within the scope of family medicine and is considered part of full reproductive health care for our patients. Research shows patients are open to and prefer to have abortion care from their primary care physician1 . It is estimated that one in four women will have an abortion by 45 years old2. This quality improvement project aims to improve health and healthcare access to persons seeking pregnancy termination or needing early pregnancy loss medication management. Following the PDSA cycle, planning included partnering with department leadership for approval, collaborating with MedStaff for physician privileging and malpractice coverage, building templates for the electronic medical record (EMR) with clinical informatics, training support staff at all three clinics, and educating our triage team and call center on triage management and patient support. We are developing a dedicated monthly procedure clinic specifically to access medication abortion for patients established within our family medicine clinics. Additionally, we will continue to offer training for interested faculty through yearly or twice-yearly presentations at department meetings and collaborate with residency leadership to provide ongoing residency education around medication abortion care. Six months post implementation of the procedure clinic, we will analyze if this dedicated clinical space is an appropriate method to increase access for medication abortion. After reviewing the results, we will revise and improve work processes as needed.