Women Transforming Healthcare:
Driving Change to Make Healthcare More Accessible, Equitable, Effective, and Efficient
In June 2024, at its daylong Women Entrepreneurs Boot Camp – WEB | Health Tech, Project W brought together women and men from across the healthcare ecosystem – founders, investors, and healthcare intrapreneurs – to interrogate how technology is driving change to improve the care delivery experience for both patients and providers. As one of the participants, Ling Kung, Senior Director | Continuum of Care and Care at Home Technologies, Kaiser Permanente noted, “this convening of minds” asked the question: “How do we really make change in healthcare?”
The U.S. healthcare systems serve a population of over 300 million: people with vastly different socioeconomic circumstances, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and living conditions. It is remarkable that this collection of providers and payors functions as well as it does. However, as a result of significant demographic shifts – including in age, ethnic background, and geography – the sector is coming under ever-increasing stress.
Through sharing expertise, experience, and imagination, WEB | Health Tech 2024 produced a collective vision of what the future of healthcare can look like when founders, funders, and legacy stakeholders collaborate.
As illustrated in the pages of this report, that vision imagines a healthcare system that – through the application of new and existing technology – is:
- More accessible – reaching underserved communities and patients
- More equitable – addressing conditions unique to historically overlooked populations
- More effective and efficient – producing better outcomes for patients and providers and developing new and more effective therapies and diagnostics
“The challenges of delivering effective healthcare are immense, but so are the opportunities. To make the kind of groundbreaking progress that is possible, it takes innovators within legacy healthcare systems working together with entrepreneurs to create solutions to address critical pain points. And it takes investors willing to put capital at risk to fund the development of those solutions.” Christina Chan, Co-Lead Healthcare M&A and Co-Chair Corporate & Business Transactions Practice, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP.
Accessibility
Investors and founders are using the power of digital platforms to reach underrepresented populations and to provide faster and more efficient access to care. As Angelica Maestas, founder and general partner of SevenFive Ventures, notes, telehealth has made healthcare more accessible, reaching communities and populations that previously lacked access, such as “people in rural communities and patients working 9 to 5 or with no personal time off allowing them to visit clinics. We now have opportunities to reach those patients.”
Adam Romney, Co-Chair of Davis Wright Tremaine’s Healthcare Group, notes that “the array of regulatory and licensure requirements applicable to companies delivering healthcare over the internet can be daunting. However, with a comprehensive compliance structure in place, companies can confidently provide services to reach underserved populations and regions that were previously healthcare deserts. The ability to provide regular checkups with primary care providers, access to specialty care, and ongoing care for chronic diseases not only improves people’s lives but also helps control the overall cost of care.”
Founders are using digital platforms to minimize the time to receive care, to consolidate information about health and wellbeing in one place, and to reach patients outside the four walls of the clinic.
Moneta uses digital technology as well as generative AI to deliver brain health solutions to older adults experiencing cognitive decline. As co-founder Jen Flexman notes, by combining an AI voice assistant with a clinical decision support platform overseen by licensed therapists, Moneta “meets seniors where they are.”
Through Nivati’s platform, patients can tap into therapy and an array of holistic tools to address mental health needs. According to founder and CEO Amelia Wilcox, a patient can see a therapist within 24 hours rather than waiting the 8 to 10 weeks it generally takes through a healthcare system.
Swehl is addressing the problem where “[m]illions of people choose to breastfeed their babies every year, and yet our society leaves parents ill-equipped, isolated, and emotionally and physically drained.” Betsy Riley and her co-founder have built a platform that, in one place, provides parents with access to the otherwise fragmented information and resources they need to navigate breast-feeding.
Through its digital platform, Yumlish, founded by Shireen Abdullah, addresses a critical gap in the healthcare industry by providing accessible, culturally relevant nutrition education to underserved populations. Working with local vendors and dieticians who understand the cultural nuances and habits of Yumlish’s users, the company reaches Medicare and Medicaid patients who may not otherwise have access to the resources and products necessary to maintain a healthy diet.
“Many of the new technologies developed by the founders in WEB | Health Tech put the patient first, empowering patients to access treatment and support that might not otherwise be available to them.”
Equity
Delivering the kind of exceptional patient experience to which both healthcare incumbents and innovators aspire requires addressing gaps in the treatment of historically overlooked populations, including women, the aging, and people of color.
Buffy Alegria, managing partner of LOUD Capital, observes that to address these disparities, models of care must shift to be more culturally competent and leverage technology to deliver diagnoses and treatment specific to the conditions of diverse populations.
One example of this shift, according to Bianca Riello of Children’s Hospital LA, is how care delivery models traditionally used in the adult space are being translated to pediatric care.
Care models – like those being developed by Ling Kung at Kaiser Permanente – are also evolving to address the aging process, creating better experiences for seniors at all stages of later life from healthy to chronic to aging.
There are many reasons for disparate health outcomes for people of color, including lack of access, mistrust of traditional healthcare providers, and biases built into technologies used to diagnose and treat conditions.
Lori Arakaki, co-founder and CEO of Opticyte, has developed the first-of-a-kind cellular pulse oximeter that enables doctors to measure whether patients have sufficient levels of oxygen within their vital organs, a metric that is key to avoiding multiple organ failure. Existing devices that measure oxygen levels can be racially biased – they make mistakes in people of color, leading to the risk of organ failure. Opticyte eliminates this bias by coupling its noninvasive device with sophisticated machine learning trained on data with equal numbers of volunteers with dark, medium, and light skin.
Like Lori Arakaki, Sanna Gaspard, the founder and CEO of Rubitection, is on a mission to eliminate racial bias in the assessment and treatment of patients. Her novel device and related software detects early signs of bed sores, skin ulcers, and other dermatological conditions. This solution replaces the traditional method of visual and manual assessment which often fails to identify problems in patients with darker skin tones.
Ovarian hormones are critical to a woman’s fertility, but they are also important to a woman’s heart, bone, and brain health. Women’s reproductive health has been traditionally under-researched and underfunded. However, solutions like Aavia’s app are closing that gap. Co-founded by Aagya Mathur, Aavia harnesses the power of 7 million data points to make recommendations to help women manage the physical and mental impacts of their menstrual cycle and to enable their doctors to make faster clinical decisions and provide better care.
Effectiveness and Efficiency
Healthcare providers are burdened by outdated legacy systems and architecture. As Ragan Hart, senior associate at MultiCare Capital Partners, and Emma Cartmell, managing partner of Create Health Ventures, explain, among the most promising opportunities for innovation is addressing fundamental impediments to the way both patients and caregivers interact with the care delivery experience.
Titan Intake’s technology revolutionizes the antiquated referral process by automating intakes and communications between provider and patient, significantly reducing referral processing time. Co-founder Rachel Brown explains that this results in patients getting the specialized care they need sooner while, at the same time, driving more referrals and higher conversion rates that lead to better economic outcomes for providers.
The solution developed by Rivia Health and its founder Rachel Mertensmeyer similarly results in better outcomes for both provider and patient. Rivia’s technology provides patients with a frictionless way to manage and pay medical bills. The platform also helps specialty practice groups increase revenue and lower operating costs by preventing patient balances from becoming bad debt or being sent to collection.
[U]sing SaaS solutions such as these addresses challenges faced by healthcare providers with outdated systems and inadequate infrastructure. By increasing efficiencies in the delivery of treatment and the management of that treatment, these innovations make care delivery a better experience for both patient and provider.”
Many of the founders in WEB | Health Tech are leveraging AI and machine learning to enable physicians to deliver targeted care to patients, leading to more comprehensive care and more effective treatment and outcomes.
In the case of NOCTEM Health founded by Anne Germain, advanced machine learning enables general practitioners to provide care that would otherwise be referred to specialists. NOCTEM’s digital technologies enable non-specialists to upskill so they can offer sleep therapy to their patients.
Kinometrix was co-founded by Devina Desai to assess the risk for patient harm events in hospitals. For its first use case, Kinometrix’s machine learning platform uses EHR data to automate patient fall-risk assessment and deliver accurate, real-time fall predictions with risk drivers specific to each patient delivered directly to the frontline clinician.
Devina notes that “machine learning modules can analyze vast amounts of data and identify subtle patterns and potential risks that traditional methods may overlook, enabling clinicians to intervene proactively and improve outcomes. This shift toward data-driven decision-making sets a new standard for patient safety and care quality. Integrating machine learning solutions across multiple hospital use cases paves the way for a future where data-driven insights lead to more proactive, personalized care for every patient.”
AI is also enabling physicians and clinicians to take personalized medicine to a new level. Michele Colucci, CEO and Managing Partner of DigitalDx Ventures, notes that with neural networks developed through deep learning, it is possible to process a massive amount of data to identify illnesses as early as possible.
As in the case of many of the companies in WEB | Health Tech, AI is already used to address patients’ needs and improve care. However, AI also holds the power to unlock the most baffling and intractable healthcare challenges by enabling scientists to accelerate the pace of scientific discovery and drug development, bringing key advancements to life faster.
Synthesize Bio empowers biomedical scientists to do their own research faster by building generative AI models that produce synthetic genomic data. Its platform and models reduce genomic data collection and analysis from months to minutes, accelerating R&D across therapeutic areas – and for a fraction of the current cost in time, personnel, and materials. This enables scientists to unlock new insights and develop groundbreaking therapies that can impact so many daily lives.
Head of Operations at Synthesize Bio, Liza Ray, is excited about how advancements in biology and AI create enormous opportunity and potential to empower scientists like never before. “Applications of AI in the life sciences can unlock insights from the massive amounts of existing biological data and help us generate more high-quality data that scientists use to quickly test ideas and make sense of the complexity inherent to biology, ultimately creating a flywheel effect. The biology-AI intersection holds much excitement for leveraging data in ways not previously possible.”
From envisioning ways to improve the fundamentals of the patient care experience to imagining a future where providers have more tools to quickly and precisely diagnose and treat illnesses and conditions, women are leading the way and Project W is here to support them.
Join the movement and get involved in Project W’s programming supporting the women transforming healthcare.
An immersive day of connections with investors and experts for women founders building solutions for the healthcare market.
A community that brings together women innovating in healthcare technology to facilitate connections and opportunities, to illuminate thought leaders, and to ensure that women have a voice in the evolving health tech sector.
The Collaborators
Thanks to all the WEB | Health Tech 2024 participants who are transforming healthcare and supporting and investing in that transformation.
Shireen Abdullah, Yumlish
Buffy Alegria, LOUD Capital
Lori Arakaki, Opticyte
Ashley Balla, Halogen VC
Aakshita Bansal, Davis Wright Tremaine
Louisa Barash, Davis Wright Tremaine
Rachel Brown, Titan Intake
Emma Cartmell, Create Health Ventures
Ari Cassuto, J.P. Morgan
Christina Chan, Davis Wright Tremaine
Michele Colucci, DigitalDX Ventures
Devina Desai, Kinometrix
Jane Eckels, Davis Wright Tremaine
Jen Flexman, Moneta Health
Sanna Gaspard, Rubitection
Anne Germain, NOCTEM Health
Alan Gould, J.P. Morgan
Ragan Hart, MultiCare Capital Partners
Ling Kung, Kaiser Permanente
Aagya Mathur, Aavia
Angelica Maestas, SevenFive Ventures
Shelly Malik, Davis Wright Tremaine
Amanda McFadden, Davis Wright Tremaine
Rachel Mertensmeyer, Rivia Health
Petra Meyer, Golden Seeds
Laurel Mintz, Fabric VC
Elise Mortensen, HTD Health
Dayna Nicholson, Davis Wright Tremaine
Thea Pham, Pantogran VC
Martha Phelps, Davis Wright Tremaine
Liza Ray, Synthesize Bio
Sophie Reynolds, Amboy Street Ventures
Katherine Rice, Gingerbread Capital
Bianca Riello, Children’s Hospital LA
Betsy Riley, Swehl
Logan Rocket-Munk, Amboy Street Ventures
Adam Romney, Davis Wright Tremaine
Kerry Rupp, True Wealth Ventures
Ashley Ryder, Vamos Ventures
Naseem Sayani, Emmeline Ventures
Evangeline Serna, J.P. Morgan
Kesar Varma, Upfront Ventures
Amelia Wilcox, Nivati
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