Technical expertise
MSI’s work is powered by evidence and clinical best practice.
As evidence-based providers of reproductive healthcare for almost 50 years, we’ve learned a lot about best practice. And when evidence is shared openly across the reproductive healthcare sector, we will all reach our goals faster — like ending unsafe abortion for good.
That’s why we collect data, track results and share best practices, with the aim of helping the entire global health sector maximise its impact.
Fuelled by data
With accurate data we can make informed decisions on how to make the most of our resources to reach more women and have the greatest impact.
300m
Data points collected every year
180k+
Interviews with clients on their experiences with MSI
100
Research, evidence & impact team members across the globe
Understanding our clients
Through client exit interviews, we can better understand who our clients are, how they found us, and what they want and need. The data and insights we collect helps us be accountable to our clients, and ensures our services are equitable, high-quality, and client-centred.
This short video shares what the data tells us about our abortion clients.
Using evidence to make decisions
Our expert research and impact teams work with country programmes, governments and other organisations to gather quantitative and qualitative data. We use this data to:
- evaluate and improve our services
- understand who our clients are
- assess how we can reach those who need our services most
- advocate for laws and policies that support reproductive health and rights
- understand the factors that influence people’s contraceptive choices
- prove our impact and ensure accountability for our donors and partners
Our Ethics Review Committee reviews the quality and ethics of our research. And much of this research and data is available in our resource library.
Reproductive health interventions: a collection of evidence & insights
Working in partnerships, we’ve pioneered the use of new techniques and approaches, based on evidence and our experience of delivering services in some of the world’s most challenging environments.
Our recent Evidence & Insights Compendium shares 16 case studies highlighting some of the most interesting projects and interventions we’ve been involved in across the globe. They share tools for quality assessment and strengthening, and what we’ve learned.
Clients and quality come first
We support clients to make the reproductive choices that are right for them. That is what we mean by client-centred care. Our client-centred care strategy helps our teams provide care that puts our clients’ interests first — empowering them to be active decision-makers, caring about who they are, what happens to them, and how they feel when they receive a service from us.
As the famous quote goes, “quality means doing it right when no one is looking”. It is the quality of MSI’s clinical services that sets us apart and allows us to make a positive impact on the lives of millions of clients.
We have clinical quality standards and processes in place to ensure whoever the client and wherever the facility, a high-quality service is provided. Our local quality assurance teams carry out on-the-job training, mentoring and assessment against global standards, supported by annual visits from our international quality assurance team.
High standards don’t come easy — especially when working at scale. It takes dedicated healthcare professionals striving to not only meet but exceed our clients’ expectations every single day.
To dig into the detail, read our latest Clinical Quality Report.
Wherever we provide services in the world, whether it’s rural outreach in Tanzania or in an urban clinic in the UK, they are always high quality and focused on the needs of women.
What’s a CYP?
The core metric used in the reproductive healthcare sector to measure the impact of our work is ‘Couple Years of Protection’ (CYP). One CYP is the contraception needed for a couple to prevent pregnancy for one year.
Different contraceptive methods have different numbers of CYPs, depending on how long they can be used for and how effectively they prevent pregnancy.
Download our infographic to see how many CYPs each contraceptive method delivers:
With accurate data we can make informed decisions on how to make the most of our resources to reach more women and have the greatest impact.
Tools for the health sector
A tool for measuring reproductive healthcare benefits & impact
We believe that we should be held accountable for the impact that our work has, not simply the amount of work that we do. So, we’ve developed Impact 2.
Impact 2 is an innovative and industry-leading mathematical tool that measures the impact of our work and the wider social and economic benefits of access to contraception. It is available for download, along with guidance and training notes.
SafeAccess: a resource hub on abortion and post-abortion care
As one of the world’s leading providers of abortion care, we came together with partners at the Safe Abortion Action Fund, International Planned Parenthood Federation, Ipas, Population Services International and others to launch SafeAccess.
SafeAccess is an online resource hub sharing best practice guidance, news and resources on safe abortion and post-abortion care, from tools that support grassroots organisations to advocate for abortion rights, to pictorial guides on how to safely self-manage an abortion.
Toolkit: Client Exit Interviews
Since 2011, we have collected high-quality data on 180,000+ clients across 29 countries with annual Client Exit Interviews (CEIs). The data helps us to ensure our services are responsive to our clients’ needs.
This toolkit shares guidance on how other organisations can implement CEIs. It can be used as an adaptable template by other healthcare service delivery organisations, institutions, governments, and non-government organisations looking to better understand the experiences of people who use their services.
We’ve made available our full Client Exit Interview Toolkit and an accompanying questionnaire template (this excel file will download to your device).