Providers often ask their patients of reproductive age a standard screening question: Are you pregnant today? This question, while important, only considers a patient’s current pregnancy status and misses the opportunity to open a much broader conversation about their desires and intentions around pregnancy.
Research has shown that patients want health care providers to ask them about their goals and desires, and then offer them the services they need based on their responses. By asking patients about if, when, and under what circumstances they’d like to become pregnant, providers can offer tailored preconception and/or contraception care based on individuals needs and wants. Asking patients about what they want reflects the simple truth that many patients are ambivalent about pregnancy. A simple yes or no response to pregnancy desire does not reflect the reality of many patients’ lives.
Meeting patients where they are and recognizing that some want to get pregnant, some do not, and some are ambivalent, led to the creation of One Key Question®. This pregnancy desire screening tool helps providers start a conversation with their patients about if, when, and under what circumstances they want to get pregnant and have a child.
By asking “Would you like to become pregnant in the next year?” and offering patients four ways to reply—yes, no, unsure, or ok either way—One Key Question captures the nuanced and personalized nature of family planning desires. One Key Question is not simply a question, it opens the door to conversations about a patient’s reproductive goals and desires to understand how those desires shape their reproductive well-being.
Over the years, thousands of providers in over 30 states have used One Key Question to better understand their patients and address maternal and child health disparities from a preventative lens. One Key Question has been implemented in all types of sites, such as primary care offices, substance abuse treatment programs, and WIC offices. Power to Decide has certified providers on how to use One Key Question to start conversations and build individualized care pathways through day-long, in-person trainings.
Power to Decide is excited to announce that One Key Question certification training is now available online!
The One Key Question Certification Training takes 4-6 hours to complete online and can be taken at any time, from any location. It can be started, put down, and picked up again at your convenience and around your schedule. Just like the in-person training, it covers topics such as reproductive well-being, unconscious bias in family planning, and how to implement this program at all types of practice sites. Ultimately, the training helps providers adopt a patient-centered approach to routinely ask about pregnancy desires.
Upon completion, providers are eligible for 6.0 CME Category 1 credits, 6.0 MCHES/CHES credits, or 6.0 CPH credits.
“I like that it was a mixture of the videos and [all of] the different ways the information was presented… I liked the variety with that. It kept me more engaged that some of the other trainings I have taken,” said Sarah, a public health nurse who helped to pilot the training.
Once certified, providers are also eligible to take a supplemental 1-2 hour training—Preconception and Contraception Pathways to Care. This training builds on the One Key Question Certification Training by diving deeper into patient-centered preconception and contraception counseling and care, teaching providers how to center patients’ desires as the conversation continues. Based on each patient’s response, providers are trained on how to offer follow-up counseling in a non-judgmental and unbiased way and how to build individual pathways to care, whether directly or through referrals.
Upon completion of the Preconception and Contraception Pathways to Care Training, providers are eligible for 2.0 CME Category 1 credits.
Both trainings are interactive and use videos, case studies, reflections, and activities to engage with the content.
To connect with a member of our team to learn more about bringing One Key Question to your group, email onekeyquestion@powertodecide.org.
