Mumbai, India 16 December 2022: The two-day Global Women’s Health Innovation Conference 2022 recently concluded on a high note. Women’s healthcare stakeholders including experts, medical practitioners, FEMTECH and digital health innovators, and social development organisations joined the conference which focused on finding strategies and learnings for a stronger industry and better health outcomes.
Global and Indian health experts came together to identify the roadmap towards equity in health and the collective steps stakeholders must take to build a stronger and more sustainable industry together.
The conference agenda set the tone by outlining the gaps that affect women’s health and experts acknowledging that the present healthcare was never created for women.
FEMTECH and technology are powerful vehicles to re-imagine the future of healthcare that caters to the 4.3 billion women of the world. The conference keynote speakers and panellists showed evidence, studies, and insights into how to re-build the women’s health ecosystem.
The conference keynote on Universal Health Coverage Day was delivered by one of India’s most respected and illustrious public health experts Professor K. Srinath Reddy, Honorary Distinguished Professor and Goodwill Ambassador of the Public Health Foundation of India. He outlined the specific areas of improvement in the public health system that will promote equality in line with the UHC 2022 theme of “Build the World We Want: A Healthy Future For All.”
The re-imagining of Women’s health is the need according to Reenita Das, the keynote speaker who specified three pillars of better equality in healthcare. Reenita Das is voted among top 100 women in Global Healthtech and Femtech and she serves as Partner and Senior Vice President -Healthcare & Life Sciences with Frost & Sullivan and is also a co-author of State of Femtech.
Sripriya Rao, Co-Founder and CGO, Karkinos Healthcare, Conference Headline Partner, shared how Karkinos is disrupting the cancer landscape with their ‘Community as a Cancer Center’ model using a technology-lead oncology platform. Karkinos Healthcare is on a mission of establishing quality, affordable, and accessible cancer care by harnessing digital technology.
The reported cancer incidences in India, during 2022 are 1.9 to 2M, whereas the real incidence is expected to be 1.5 to 3 times higher than the reported cases. Out of these reported cases, the majority continue to be detected in late stage cancer types. The problem is real and there is a need to focus on early detection of cancers. For women in India, the gaps in cervical cancer care are quite shocking as cervical cancer is the second most common cancer, despite it being largely preventable.
The conference success story series demonstrated how FEMTECH is drastically improving healthcare for women, be it accessibility, affordability, awareness, or ease of use. Three very successful solutions were presented by NIRAMAI Health Analytics, Elda Health, and Ocon Healthcare to show the potential of technology in meeting the critical needs of women and how this transformation can positively impact every woman.
Newmi, India’s first ‘Women Health Lifecycle Management’ platform, Perkant Tech Private Limited and
DigiSwasthya Foundation which is being incubated by Atal Innovation Mission supported by NITI Aayog under the category of Tech for Social Good featured among the success stories.
The experts also discussed the limiting factors in advancing women’s health such as investment barriers, and less funding and resources in women specific research and clinical protocols.
The Powerful Panels Series of the Conference
The conference held a series of impactful panel discussions covering the spectrum of women’s health, reproductive health, mental health, postpartum care, the need of connected healthcare solutions and the importance of building trust and managing data.
Panels were joined by leading health practitioners and doctors who presented their real-life experiences, gaps, and challenges women face and where the healthcare community needs technological support. These findings were a good source of learning as well as potential opportunities for femtech innovators and entrepreneurs.
Lessons in Reimagining the Future of Women’s Health
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Focus on sex specific care that is related to different bodies and a great example shared was that of prosthetic care which is built to overall suit a man’s body and applied across genders.
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More investment and resource allocation to sex aware care where research and clinical trials diagnose and treat women specifically as women respond differently to diseases.
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Future must be diverse to accommodate gender sensitive care where clinical work and more research are much needed for diverse communities.
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The future of women’s health must be connected in order to drive the importance of collaborative efforts for better patient outcomes.
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The femtech community must incorporate privacy and protection of data at the design stage.
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Diversity and social and gendered perspectives are needed to stay aligned to the vision of FEMTECH as a gender equality enabler.
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More public private partnerships to enable scale and reach for femtech innovators.
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Need for a robust and transparent ethics and trust building process.
The conference concluded with a special round table participatory discussion on the future of women’s health and the panellists’ outlined top wish list requirements from the women’s health community such as more public private partnerships, need of a robust and transparent ethics and trust building process. The conference experts came together to call for a better and improved role of tech innovators and entrepreneurs in raising voices and more meaningful collaborations.
Jaya Rebello, Managing Director of Collab Function and the organiser of the conference concludes by highlighting how this conference is serving a pressing need of more meaningful dialogue between stakeholders of women’s health.
Conference Headline Partner: Karkinos Healthcare
Karkinos Healthcare, is India’s leading innovation pioneer in cancer care, announced its support to the conference as a part of their vision to support health innovations and women’s health industry.
Conference Knowledge Partner: Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan is one of the most respected and recognized organisation which is helping build sustainable growth strategies for Fortune 1000 companies, governments, and investors.
Conference Supporting Partners:
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Indian Psychiatric Society – speciality section women and mental health
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The PCOS Society of India
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The Association of Medical Consultants (AMC), Mumbai
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FemTech India
Media Partners:
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Medicircle, the voice of healthcare and also speaker Live series
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Women’s Web
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Feminism in India
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Women Entrepreneur India
