Effectiveness and safety of a direct-to-patient telehealth service providing medication bortion targeted at rural and remote populations: Cross-sectional findings from Marie Stopes Australia

Objectives: We assessed the safety and effectiveness of direct-to-patient telehealth provision of medica-tion abortion in Australia. Study design: We included all medication abortions (January 2017-December 2018) from Marie Stopes Australia's patient management and adverse event reporting systems. We defined effectiveness as whether the patient had a continuing pregnancy, incomplete abortion, and/or subsequent vacuum as-piration or procedural abortion and safety as whether the patient experienced any adverse event. Results: Direct-to-patient telehealth was more effective than in-clinic provision (97.2% vs 95.4%). The proportion of adverse events did not differ between groups.Conclusions: This direct-to-patient telehealth service is safe and effective.(c) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.