NewYork-Presbyterian certified by NYC DOH in initiative to increase contraceptive access

The New York City Department of Health recently awarded the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital 10 certificates for completing the Quality Improvement Network for Contraceptive Access (QINCA) initiative on March 2, 2018.

NewYork-Presbyterian received the request for applications in September 2016, and were accepted into the cohort shortly after. The initiative at NYP was led by Anne Davis, MD, Wyeth Ayerst Associate Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology at CUIMC.

“I’m so proud that at NYP/CUIMC we value the reproductive healthcare needs of women and made this complex task a priority,” said Dr. Davis.

The QINCA Learning Collaborative worked with selected hospitals to address barriers to accessing contraception and facilitate the adoption of best practices in contraceptive access, as a way to help NYC residents meet their reproductive health goals. The goal of QINCA was to increase patient access to the most or moderately effective FDA-approved contraceptive methods in three clinical settings - primary care, post-abortion and postpartum care.

Patients at NYP/CUIMC are already seeing the benefits of the initiative. In January and February of 2018, about 1 in 20 women on the postpartum service at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York and the Allen Hospital chose to have an intrauterine device (IUD) or implant placed before they went home after delivering their new babies.