Our Take: An increase of women’s representation on both ends of venture capital-investments and startup entrepreneurship- will result in substantive benefits. By providing opportunities for women-founded companies, venture capitalists create room for billions of dollars in GDP growth and work toward closing the gender gap. Differently, if left undealt with, the lack of women in tech roles could have detrimental effects on the economy, rewind the progress made in gender equit

The Driver: The explosion of growth in telemedicine during the COVID pandemic gave rise to a corresponding increase in demand for additional services like second opinions and e-consults. As increasing amounts of care shifted to virtual delivery, payers soon realized they had to look at managing the costs of specialty care and turned to providers of second opinions and online or e-consults like RubiconMD. Rubicon, which raised an additional $18M in a Series C funding in March

Key Takeaways: With increased interdependence of medicine and data sciences, new physician/data scientists are needed to help develop and audit AI models, Most data fed into AI tools tend to be homogeneous patient populations, thus companies must institute frameworks for responsible data use. Minimizing racial and ethnic bias in AI requires auditing both the development and output of models to ensure their clinical accuracy and relevance. Transparency and explainability, part

The Driver: One of the many things demonstrated by the COVID pandemic was the need for improved care coordination, record keeping, and collaboration in the care of seniors. In addition, since caregivers and families were unable to visit patients due to the pandemic, seniors became socially isolated, taking a toll on their physical and emotional health. As a result of the devastating impact of COVID in senior care facilities, many have looked to examine their entire systems an

Our Take: The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the use of telehealth and medical technology as federal restrictions were loosened and waivers were put into place. Although telehealth is used more frequently to treat acute conditions, physicians need to be wary of the potential for malpractice issues in the future. There are outstanding concerns around whether providers are aware of particular guidelines to ensure the standard of care has been met. Post pandemic, waivers will b

The Driver: Adyn, a Seattle startup, raised a $2.5 million seed round co-led by Lux Capital and M13. Adyn plans to use the funds to launch its birth control optimization test later this year. It has already sparked demand and has a waiting list for users. The Takeaways: Adyn’s at-home kit measures hormone baseline levels and assesses genetic risk for two of the most serious birth control side-effects: depression & blood clots Women’s health is often understudied, resulting in

Our Take: Community pharmacists (CPs) can help alleviate the healthcare burden and close healthcare access gaps since getting care from pharmacists is more convenient and cheaper for patients. For example, the Canadian healthcare system uses community pharmacists to help treat uncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTIs) which affect more than 50% of women before the age of 32 and which requires a simple round of antibiotics prescribed on time. Formal cost-effectiveness stud