This issue of HMPI is focused on the question of women both as healthcare entrepreneurs and as patients. Overall, the issue provides support for innovation in women’s health, and for an expanded role of women to lead these efforts. The issue also addresses the challenges of OB-GYN practice in the US, illustrating the impact of workforce and payment models on women’s access to services. Finally, Reggie’s case corner features insights from the first tenured professor at Harvard Business School, and her case studies featuring women entrepreneurs in healthcare.Together, this is an exciting set of articles. We hope they will engage you in this effort to advance women’s health in the US.
Dzinoreva et al. provide a case study of the crisis in maternity care in rural America. This piece carefully documents the many challenges facing rural obstetric providers, from reimbursement to how clinical practice has evolved to offer very different career paths between urban and rural providers.
Fitzgerald et al. provide a detailed assessment of how the mechanics of payment, the Resource-Based Relative Value Unit System (RBRVS) systematically undervalues the procedures performed by OB-GYN physicians, and how the system undercompensated procedures performed on women compared with similar procedures performed on men. They describe several approaches to correcting this systematic bias in the payment structure.
Owen et al. provide a systematic framework for discussing women’s health and an analysis of business opportunities in this space. Their effort is based on a synthesis of the medical literature and provides an exciting roadmap for innovation in this space.
Creo conducts an interview with Laura Yecies, the CEO of Bone Health Technologies, an entrepreneurial approach to developing new treatments for osteoporosis. Yecies describes her personal motivation for trying to tackle this significant clinical problem, and how she approaches entrepreneurship in this space.
Quarshie et al. develop a life-course analysis to examine women’s health and offer an argument that the FemTech market offers the potential for significant improvement in the health of women in the US and globally.
Walker describes the gender differences in innovation roles in healthcare, and argues that we are facing a significant opportunity cost by not have more women in leadership roles as healthcare innovators. This article draws from an extensive body of research developed on this topic by the author.
Together, this is an exciting set of articles. We hope they will engage you in an effort to advance women’s health.
Kevin Schulman, MD, MBA
BAHM President & HMPI Editor-in-Chief
Professor of Medicine, Stanford University