New program will train APRNs in reproductive health services
Program funded with IDPH grant Heading link
UIC Nursing is one of three organizations in Illinois to receive funding from the Illinois Department of Public Health intended to increase access to safe abortions from skilled providers.
The grant will establish a program to train and mentor certified nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners across the state to provide safe abortion care. Those advanced practice nurses will in turn be able to serve as preceptors for Doctor of Nursing Practice students.
The effort follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that eliminated the constitutional right to abortion in the United States and allowed states to restrict access to abortion.
“When I said Illinois would be an oasis for women seeking reproductive care, I meant it,” said Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker in an IDPH press release about the grant funding.
Assistant professor Kylea Liese, PhD, CNM, the primary investigator on the grant, says that certified nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners are in an ideal position to provide safe abortion care, but currently, there is a lack of standardized education on abortion care in both the classroom and clinical training.
In 2023, Pritzker signed a law affirming that medical and procedural management of abortion are part of the legal scope of care for nurse practitioners and certified nurse-midwives in Illinois.
“Abortion needs to be part of primary care,” Liese says. “Pregnant individuals should be able to see their preferred and familiar primary care provider for a first-trimester abortion. It’s more comfortable for them and it reduces costs and delays. Training nurse practitioners is about removing barriers to accessing routine reproductive health care, which includes abortions.”
The grant will create the Reproductive Advocacy and Diversity in Advanced Nursing Training (RADIANT) Learning Collaborative. RADIANT faculty will implement six trainings with cohorts of nurse practitioners and certified nurse-midwives from across the state, offering hands-on, mentored training experiences in clinical reasoning, patient interactions, safe abortion care and integration into practice.
RADIANT faculty comprise an interdisciplinary team of physicians and doctorally prepared advanced practice nurses from the UIC Nursing and UI Health systems. The RADIANT faculty also reflects the diversity of Illinois’ abortion-seeking patients.
These faculty include Erica Hinz, MD, MPH, director of the Complex Family Planning Fellowship in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology; Pamela Pearson, DNP ’18, CNM, FACNM, director of the nurse-midwifery program at UIC Nursing; Karie Stewart, CNM, MSN ’17, MPH, director of the UIH Mile Square Women’s Health Institute of Excellence, and Erin Farah, CNM, PhD ’16, MSN ’05, BSN ’00, UIH certified nurse-midwife.
“This grant will help us mentor providers and support them as they integrate it into practice,” Liese says. “We’ll be making sure that abortion care is both gender-affirming and trauma-informed, things we do really well as nurse practitioners and midwives.”
The RADIANT Fellowship will establish access to 90 new providers for medication abortions, 15 new providers for procedural abortions, and a self-sustaining network of mentors and preceptors for DNP students intending to integrate abortion care into their future practice.
“Illinois has seen the greatest increase in abortions from out of state,” Liese says. “This grant is a way for nurse practitioners to do their part to manage this crisis.”