New UCSF Study Touts Effectiveness of Telemedicine Abortions

A new study out of the University of California at San Francisco finds that an overwhelming number of patients who underwent telemedicine abortions at a California clinic during the height of the pandemic completed the procedure without problems.

The study, recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, testifies not only to the safety of medication abortions – which opponents have argued are unsafe – but to the value of telehealth in these procedures. Supporters say telehealth can improve access to care for women in underserved areas, while also allowing care providers to treat more patients.

“This (study) shows that there is a way for patients to have early and easy access to providers even if an in-person visit is not possible,” Sarah Yamaguchi, a board certified gynecologist at Los Angeles-based DTLA Gynecology, told Healthline. “Patients should have access to abortion early, safely, and affordably.”

Conducted by Ushma Upadhyay, PhD, MPH, Leah Koenig, MSPH, and Karen Meckstroth, MD, MPH, of UCSF, the study tracked 141 patients who received “fully remote, asynchronous medication abortion care” between October 2020 and January 2021 at the Choix clinic. Of the 110 patients on whom data was collected, 105 (95 percent) completed their abortion without intervention and five required medical care to complete the procedure.

“These results represent some of the earliest data on new telehealth abortion clinics in the US,” the study pointed out. “This 95 percent efficacy rate is similar to in-person provision and recent international studies of telehealth for medication abortion.”

It also adds fuel to the debate over medication abortions, which are delivered via Mifepristone and Misoprostol and represented 40 percent of all abortions conducted in 2017. Mifepristone is included in the US Food and Drug Administration’s Risk Evaluations and Mitigation Strategies (REMS) protocol, which requires that drugs determined to be risky be dispensed in a healthcare setting under the direct supervision of a certified care provider, and that patients be advised of the drug’s dangers.

Because of the pandemic, the requirement was relaxed in July 2020, enabling care providers to use telehealth. The US Supreme Court reinstated that rule in March 2021, but the Biden Administration paused FDA enforcement in April and has said it would take Mifepristone off the REMS protocol.

Abortion advocates often point to another UCSF study to back their arguments. In 2019, researchers from Ibis Reproductive Health and University of California San Francisco’s (UCSF) Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), analyzed records from some 5,900 patients who underwent a medication abortion at one of 26 Planned Parenthood health centers in Alaska, Idaho, Nevada and Washington. They found that “outcomes for medication abortion provided through telemedicine are comparable with standard provision of medication abortion.”