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| Helping pharmacy & health communities improve access to Emergency Contraception (EC) |
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Behind the Website: GO2EC.orgWhat has the power to promote best practices in health care, increase communication AND create more choices for women? The combination of pharmacists and EC leaders working together to improve EC access!
GO2EC.org is a website promoting direct access to emergency contraception in pharmacies. It is designed to foster communication and the sharing of best practices between pharmacists and reproductive health care leaders around improving EC access. Pharmacy Access Partnership Former Director Jane Boggess noted, “As soon as we realized that there was nothing like this out there, we began planning what the site would look like.” Pharmacy Access Partnership staff articulated the vision behind their plans and the development of the site was generously supported by the Open Society Institute. Pharmacy and family planning consultants were brought on board to help design the site from its beginning stages. One of those consultants was Nancy Shanfeld. “There’s a real need to educate people on EC and to provide resources and examples of how pharmacists and advocates have, and can, come together to take action. I was honored to be asked to participate.” To determine what information and resources key stakeholders would want to see and use on the site, Sharon Cohen, the website’s Project Lead, conducted an extensive needs assessment survey. Overwhelmingly, respondents from both the pharmacy and reproductive health advocacy communities asked for:
These results helped guide the Partnership and consultant team to survey all 50 states and to develop content that met with stakeholder feedback. According to Linda Simkin, another consultant on the project, this type of information can have a tremendous impact. “There are some fabulous people out there, who have the ability to see the big EC picture. This website will help identify who they are and connect them to people and resources that will help them promote our common vision of broader access.” Jane Boggess was pleased with how quickly the project took off. “We were able to get this website off the ground in a very short time frame with limited resources. There’s a lot of energy behind this.” However, this was no easy task! State profiles for each of the fifty states had to be constructed from hundreds of interviews, legislative history and activity researched, and pharmacy practice acts were reviewed for each state. An extensive variety of resources including state and national contacts, an EC library, and useful links also needed to be collected and organized. “We’ve collaborated with so many inspiring leaders through this project and they all have such great stories to tell,” recounts Sharon, “that interviewing EC leaders and sharing their personal stories on the website was a perfect fit. And this is only the beginning. We’ve already begun to gather more stories and insights from many other leaders.” So any surprises, good and bad, along the way? Linda Simkin said that she was “thrilled by the energy in the family planning community around EC” and found several encouraging “pockets of opportunity” to do more. Some of these opportunities include college campuses and college town pharmacies. She found sobering reports that economic cutbacks had limited the capacity of some local agencies and community-based agencies to mobilize around issues of common interest. Nancy Shanfeld shared how hopeful she felt watching collaborative practice agreements develop. “As agreements were getting approved, I witnessed several states create areas in their legislation for this to fall under. Progress is being made.” Nancy also expressed concern that EC is still very often confused with abortion and that this misunderstanding was causing some to oppose improvements to access without all the facts. Pharmacist consultant, Anna Kowblansky, also shared some of the insights she took away from the project. “Change is a process and not an event. Patience is key. EC may not always be the top priority for pharmacists but it doesn’t mean that they aren’t interested. Success will happen in small increments and some states will be slower than others.” One key surprise for Anna was the economics of pharmacies. “I learned that many pharmacists do not stock EC out of demand and due to limited shelf life, not necessarily because they weren’t open to the idea of it.” What’s next? Sharon Cohen reports that the results thus far are positive — for pharmacists and EC leaders. “We envision pharmacists and advocates really owning the site. We encourage the site’s users to contribute updates so GO2EC will continue to be a resource for the most current information at the state and national levels. Of course a website can never replace face-to-face contact. The Pharmacy Access Partnership hopes to build small forums where we can bring leaders in EC pharmacy access together to learn from one another.”
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