Empowering Women’s Health Through Technology on World Health Day

While men and women share a common humanity, their differences extend beyond mere physical characteristics. Societal roles and power dynamics have historically influenced women’s health and wellness. Despite significant advancements in women’s rights and healthcare access today, there continue to be challenges within healthcare systems that fail to adequately address the specific needs of women, leading to serious implications.

According to a recent report from the World Economic Forum and McKinsey Health Institute, women live longer than men; however, they spend over 25% of their lives in poor health. Bridging this gap could potentially add an additional seven healthy days each year for women. Therefore, addressing women’s health requires a dedicated approach that embraces technological innovations to cater specifically to their needs.

Indian Perspective on Women’s Health

India has made notable strides in enhancing women’s health and overall quality of life, thanks in part to various governmental initiatives. The maternal mortality rate has been lowered to 97 per 100,000 live births, alongside significant reductions in infant mortality rates.

Nonetheless, several pressing challenges still require immediate attention. Breast cancer represents a significant health burden, making up 28.2% of all cancer cases among women. Cervical cancer follows closely, holding a five-year prevalence rate of 18.8%. Additionally, disparities in healthcare access, exacerbated by the urban-rural divide and limited availability of quality services, further complicate these issues.

Leveraging Technology for Women’s Healthcare

The advancement of technology holds immense potential to address these pressing challenges and drive progress in women’s healthcare. Here are several ways it can transform women’s health services:

1. Meeting Women’s Unique Needs

Globally, two out of three women succumb to non-communicable diseases (NCDs), equating to nearly 19 million deaths annually. This underscores the critical demand for personalized medicine. As healthcare systems transition to a value-based model, it’s essential to tailor treatments that yield optimal results. Technology can facilitate this by addressing the increasing prevalence of NCDs and chronic illnesses, ensuring accurate diagnoses while forecasting the likelihood of individuals developing specific conditions.

2. Emphasizing Precision Medicine

Precision medicine, unlike a generic approach, allows healthcare providers to offer tailored treatments for each patient, particularly crucial for women. This strategy encompasses a four-pronged approach:

• Enhancing Diagnostic Accuracy: Integrated systems utilizing advanced technologies make the diagnostic process precise and systematic.
• Reducing Unnecessary Variations: Intelligent tools analyze extensive datasets to assist in clinical decision-making, thus eliminating inconsistencies in diagnostics.
• Personalized Data Utilization: Treating patients as unique individuals by considering comprehensive patient data beyond just genetic information.
• Implementing Advanced Therapies: Utilizing innovative therapies, including robotics and imaging techniques, to conduct minimally invasive procedures.

3. Integrating Advanced Imaging Techniques

Medical imaging’s scope has broadened, expanding from mere diagnosis to include prevention and therapeutic interventions. Incorporating AI and machine learning into advanced imaging techniques provides clinically relevant insights that enhance precision medicine, thus transforming healthcare delivery. For example, digital mammography systems offer superior sensitivity and specificity compared to traditional methods, improving cancer detection rates while minimizing false positives.

4. Developing Comprehensive Care Models

Despite 69% of the Indian population residing in rural regions, 73% of public hospital beds are situated in urban areas, resulting in inadequate access to timely and quality care. This disparity leads to poor outcomes, including miscarriages, unsafe abortions, and stillbirths. Therefore, healthcare systems should aim to provide comprehensive care without geographical barriers. Achieving this entails enhancing accessibility, delivering decentralized services, and creating intelligent interconnected networks among patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals, such as the hub-and-spoke model that connects primary and secondary care facilities.

Women’s health is crucial to societal development and must be prioritized. Embracing technology and innovation will foster healthcare systems attuned to the specific needs of women while demanding collective efforts from various stakeholders to increase funding, build robust infrastructures, and establish standardized care frameworks. Let us commit to providing women with a healthy start and a promising future.