.png)
THE WOMEN'S HEALTH
STARTUP STUDIO
Mission Menopause
LITERACY & JOURNEY
What if we could provide personalized solutions to the 1.2 Bn women in menopause by 2030?
100% of women go through menopause, each with a personal journey.
Challenge
As each patient comes with their own genetic make up, lifestyle, medical history, culture and range of symptoms, no one menopause journey is the same.
Women at the height of their careers and spending power, are in a unique position to embrace transitional change and ensure their long term wellbeing.
However, the menopausal transition impacts women’s daily lives, affecting the society in which women live, thrive and work. With up to 38 different symptoms, many women have little awareness or recognition that they may be experiencing perimenopause.
Even if they do make this link, accurate and scientifically sound information is not widely available. Knowledge is power, for healthcare providers, women, and their families.
Imagine, democratizing information to empower women and their healthcare providers on their menopause journey. Imagine personalizing the journey.
How might we help discover a comprehensive solution to enable the best route to navigate through this transition and optimize each personal journey?
What if we could provide personalized solutions to the 1.2 Bn women in menopause by 2030?
SPOTLIGHT
What if we could break the cycle of shame and taboo?
Exposing everyday life challenges, affecting millions of women worldwide will allow them to be addressed.
Challenge
Continuing daily routine and lifestyle without disturbance.
Silent epidemics affect almost 50% of women(!) but are not given the attention they should, nor are the solutions sufficient. They are hushed, unspoken and even taboo. But billions of women worldwide suffer from them. These have enormous societal and economic impact.
We want to change that.
Here are some of the leading silent epidemics that occur in menopause: Pelvic organ prolapse (POP), urinary incontinence (UI) and genitourinary syndrome of menopause (GSM).
Symptoms for these conditions are common and many are treatable. Still, rates of care seeking, diagnosis, evaluation and treatment are extremely low. Research shows that most women do not even discuss their symptoms with a health care provider, and as a result do not even begin to initiate care. Overall quality of life is significantly impaired.
How might we overcome cultural taboos for early diagnosis and treatment of these silent epidemics, to improve women’s quality of life in menopause?
How might we create accessible and effective treatments for women suffering from silent epidemics?
SMART EXPANSION
What if we could expand and reproduce menopause expertise like we do stem cells?
The expertise for menopause is held by a select few, while the need will reach 1.2 B by 2030.
Challenge
Just as stem cells are grown from a select few and can be rapidly expanded to help millions of patients, so too does menopause expertise need to be rapidly expanded from the few to the many.
Menopause, although not a disease, requires expertise to ensure wellbeing and minimize or prevent chronic diseases that may arise from the hormonal decline during midlife.
However, the menopausal transition will affect 100% of 51% of the population. Clearly the demand will exceed the supply.
How might we increase menopause expertise amongst healthcare providers to ensure women receive the best care they need?
THE FULL PICTURE
What if healthcare providers could conduct a patient’s menopause journey like a conductor does an orchestra?
Unifying interprofessional communication will allow better patient outcomes.
Challenge
Patient care is characterized by fragmentation. Meeting the menopausal women’s needs requires holistic care.
Every healthcare profession has a different set of terms and protocol unfamiliar to their counterparts. During menopause, a woman may consult with multiple healthcare professionals. Each professional works in a silo, with minimal cross disciplinary communication sometimes with contraindications. A care continuum is lacking.
The result of this fragmentation is a wide array of misdiagnosis, frustration, at a great economic and societal burden.
How might we create seamless patient care, ensuring it is patient centric?
How might we ensure holistic patient centric care?
UNDER THE RADAR
What if we could set up an alarm system for menopause like we do to wake up?
Signaling the transition to avert the danger zone.
Challenge
Menopause presents a period of vulnerability, where many underlying risk factors or diseases that were previously unnoticed, surface. Heart disease for example is the no. 1 killer of women worldwide. Women that go into this transition early , either because their ovaries prematurely age or they have an immediate menopause from surgical or cancer treatments, are at an even higher risk of heart disease, osteoporosis and others. Osteoporosis is a silent disease and early prevention can only be picked up on screening.
It’s time for a wake up call before disease or disabling symptoms set in. This ideally needs to start before or at the beginning of the menopausal journey.
What if we were able to alert women and their healthcare providers early on to be on the lookout for menopause itself and the many preventable diseases and associated risks?
UNBOXING PAIN
What if we could treat pain like an unboxing?
Searching for the root of chronic pain
Challenge
Much like opening a special package to reveal its contents, imagine unboxing pain in order to recognize and treat its underlying sources. Pain is subjective, multifactorial and unique. In its extreme forms it can be debilitating, keeping us “locked”.
Women experience pain differently to men and cultural factors influence how women present with pain. Women are seen to be more “emotional” and often neglect their own pain in favor of looking after the needs of others. To make matters worse many women experience stigma and dismissal of their pain when they do seek help.
One in seven women in the United States is affected by chronic pain. This is on a par with the prevalence of migraines, asthma, and chronic back pain.
Chronic pelvic pain affects approx. 15% of women, and has multiple causes many of which may have treatment solutions. It causes substantial personal suffering and healthcare expenditure, including multiple consultations and medical and surgical therapies.
Discovering the core causes of pain through personal engagement will expedite solutions.
What if we could treat pain like an unboxing?