Setting the standard of care for providing quality family planning services

Abstract: The Office of Population Affairs (OPA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are preparing to release new guidance designed to establish a national standard of care for, and improve the quality of, the provision of family planning services in the United States. The guidance updates “program guidelines” that the Federal Title X program has historically published for its network of more than 4,000 service sites. The new guidance builds on this history in several ways. Some of the unique features of this guidance include: defining a core set of family planning services for women and for men; providing more details about how to provide family planning services in an evidence-based manner and referencing key professional and Federal guidance, such as CDC's Medical Eligibility for Contraceptive Use; recommending how to provide contraceptive counseling, serve adolescents, conduct community outreach, and perform quality improvement; and highlighting the opportunity to use the family planning service delivery platform to provide a broader package of essential preventive services to women and men. While most important for Title X settings, we expect that this guidance will be implemented within and have a meaningful impact on the larger field of reproductive health service delivery regardless of the setting in which services are provided.