The freedom to use one’s preferred contraceptive method—or no method—is fundamental to reproductive autonomy, which is a particularly salient issue for disabled people, who face substantial barriers to person-centered contraceptive care while also being subjected to interference in reproductive decision making.
National Veteran Affairs guidance recommends regular assessment of reproductive goals at primary care visits. However, Drs. Quinn, Borrero, and Callegari found that fewer than half (44%) of pregnancy capable veterans reported receiving any reproductive health services (i.e., contraceptive services, pre-pregnancy counseling or both) from a VA primary care provider in the last year. In this article the team discusses the femtech tool MyPath as a way to promote patient-centered conversations about reproductive goals and needs for services.
Integration of reproductive health services into primary care is a strategy to address service gaps and improve patient-centered care. This study assessed receipt of contraceptive and pre-pregnancy health counseling among pregnancy-capable Veterans within VA primary care.
Congrats to Dr. Ellison for receiving third place on her poster focusing on contraceptive service use among tradition Medicare and Medicare advantage enrollees at last weekend's Society of Family Planning's Annual Conference!
Deirdre Quinn, PhD, MSc is one of VHA Shark Tank's finalists! Her promising practice, Contraception on Demand (COD) offers VA facilities the opportunity to expand contraceptive access for Veterans, improve Veteran experiences with reproductive healthcare at VA, and expand VA clinical pharmacists' scope of practice and job satisfaction. The practice is easy to adopt and implement and is achievable at very low cost to the individual facility and an estimated cost savings for the health system at large.
Learn more here: https://marketplace.va.gov/innovations/contraception-on-demand
Deirdre Quinn, PhD, MSc is one of VHA Shark Tank's finalists! Her promising practice, Contraception on Demand, employs two evidence-based strategies, pharmacist-led contraceptive prescribing and 12-month dispensing, to increase contraceptive access for Veterans, improve Veterans’ experiences with VA reproductive healthcare, and meaningfully expand VA clinical pharmacists’ scope of practice.
On September 15, 2021, CWHRI faculty collaborated on a letter to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) about the current state of women's and gender health. Focusing on developing and validating meaningful measures, building data infrastructure, and developing and testing innovative interventions, these comments create a foundation for how the NIH can move forward to advance gender and racial equity in the Office of Research on Women's Health.
Congratulations Deirdre Quinn, PhD, MSc, MLitt for presenting at the 20th Annual Department of Medicine Research Day. Find more information here about Dr. Quinn's research and other speakers at this year's Research day!
Biden signs first bill in ‘Momnibus’ package, citing work by Dr. Deirdre Quinn, Dr. Lisa Callegari, and Dr. Sonya Borrero.
