Natalie Duffield discusses how Inhealthcare, a leading UK digital health and remote monitoring company, is assisting NHS organisations in developing and implementing technologies to close the gender gap in health outcomes and ensure fair access to women’s clinical services.
Research reveals that women spend a significantly larger portion of their lives in ill health and disability compared to men and are underrepresented in critical clinical trials. Furthermore, there has been insufficient focus on women-specific health issues such as miscarriage, endometriosis, and menopause.
Addressing this gender gap could not only add years to women’s lives but also potentially boost the global economy by $1 trillion by 2040, according to the McKinsey Health Institute. The consultancy emphasizes that women’s health is not merely a standalone issue but a cornerstone of social well-being and progress.
The UK’s Widening Gender Health Gap
The gender health gap is especially pronounced in the UK, where it is the largest among G20 countries, according to research by the House of Lords. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists highlights that women often struggle to find accurate health information, that the NHS primarily focuses on intervention rather than prevention, and that opportunities to empower women and girls are frequently missed. Women’s healthcare services are also often fragmented and difficult to access.
Caroline Criado Perez, a Yorkshire-based author and activist, argues that these issues are deep-rooted, stemming from attitudes dating back to ancient times. In her best-selling book *Invisible Women*, Criado Perez contends that the medical system systematically discriminates against women, leaving them misunderstood, mistreated, and misdiagnosed.
Empowering Women’s Health Through Digital Innovation
The UK government has pledged to improve how the health and care system listens to women’s voices and to enhance health outcomes for women and girls. Their long-term goals include leveraging technology to empower women and provide fair access to safe and effective diagnostic, therapeutic, and preventive technologies.
At Inhealthcare, we have spent the past decade developing digital health services aimed at breaking down barriers between patients and traditional healthcare settings. These services are transforming how care is delivered and received.
For example, our gestational diabetes service, offered to expectant mothers across several NHS trusts in northern England, empowers women to manage their condition at home, ensuring timely and accurate treatment. This service replaces the outdated manual process of using paper diaries, which were often lost or incomplete, with a digital system that enhances patient care.
Similarly, our postnatal hypertension service allows women to monitor their blood pressure at home and relay readings automatically to their clinical teams. This frequent monitoring helps prevent serious complications like stroke and reduces the need for in-person appointments.
Technology’s Role in Timely Interventions
Women in the UK are needlessly dying from heart attacks or not recovering as well as they could because they don’t receive the same care as men, according to the British Heart Foundation. To address this, we’ve partnered with FibriCheck, a medically certified app that scales up preventative heart health checks, enabling NHS organizations to better detect and manage conditions like atrial fibrillation, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.
In mental health, where women are three times more likely than men to experience problems, we’ve launched a tech-enabled program in London to extend physical health check pathways for people with severe mental illness. This initiative aims to reduce the life expectancy gap for this group by offering checks in accessible locations, including community centers and even their homes.
In Scotland, we’ve developed an app for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a condition twice as common in women as in men. The app helps users track symptoms, access trusted information, and request support from dietitians, significantly reducing the wait time for specialist advice.
Closing the Gender Gap Through Digital Health
These examples illustrate how digital health services can extend care beyond traditional settings, generate crucial data to inform NHS funding, and ultimately close the gender gap in health. By focusing on the needs of women, we can ensure they have equal access to healthcare and improve their overall health outcomes.
Note: Originally published by https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/
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