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📍   Today in Health IT, we're discussing the women's health gap. This episode is brought to you by SureTest. Transform your health system's application testing and reclaim thousands of hours with SureTest. thisweekhealth. com backslash suretest to learn more.

My name is Kate Gamble. I'm Managing Editor at This Week Health, where we host a set of channels and events dedicated to transforming healthcare, one connection at a time. I've spent the last 12 years interviewing CXOs, and I'm excited to bring that knowledge into this community of leaders. today, we're discussing the women's health gap, and I'm joined by Sarah Richardson, President of This Week Health 229 Executive Development Community.

Sarah, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Kate. Of course. So this article discusses the persistent gender health gap, emphasizing that women are underdiagnosed for several conditions compared to men, leading to worsened health outcomes. Some of the key issues include Delayed diagnoses in diseases like cardiovascular conditions, autism, ADHD, autoimmune disorders, and antimicrobial resistance.

The article also highlights the economic benefits of closing the gap and calls for more gender, sensitive healthcare research and policies to improve women's health globally. So the information here is coming from World Economic Forum. This is a really large scale study and obviously reflects a huge population.

And we know that this is so important and lot of different components to this. So I wanted to get your thoughts first. on the equity piece. The article talks about the disparities in diagnosing and treating women and is, asking leaders to advocate for gender sensitive healthcare practices.

But I'm sure that this is something you've found this far as the, yeah, the disparities in equity. And this is a tough one. There's not like a specific solution we can put in place here. So what are your thoughts here? I'm most grateful that As women, we are talking about this because we are experiencing it firsthand.

And I would say that it's not just the gender bias that may come into play, it's also going to be the ethnicity bias that comes into play. And studies have shown that women often prioritize the health of others, such as family members, over their own due to traditional caregiving roles. So this leads to the delayed self care and the health care appointments, which contributes to higher rates of chronic illnesses.

like cardiovascular disease and autoimmune disorders. So even though we generally live longer than men, we also tend to experience more years of poor health due to these conditions being under or untreated. And the emotional and physical strain of caregiving further exacerbates health issues over time.

That results in a paradox of longevity paired with greater illness. So you and I may live longer, but if you don't live a longer, healthier, happier, independent life, then it just creates this whole burden on the healthcare system and on yourself, truly. But think about it, especially as a wife and a mother, whose healthcare do you put first in your own family?

Not mine, honestly. Yeah, we put ourselves last because if you have an ache or a pain and so many of the things that women experience, especially with cardiovascular disease is symptomatic of, Oh, my arm hurts because of this. Oh, my lower back hurts because of this. Oh, I have chest pain from this, but it's not, you're not going to correlate that into maybe there's something wrong.

We tend to just simply say rub some dirt on it. I remember from my big fat Greek wedding, put some Windex on that. There are so many times. That we live with a chronic state of discomfort in our bodies because we think that's just part of what we do every day. Yeah. And as we said, the challenging part here is what exactly can be done because there are organizations that have academic components and research components, and maybe there's some kind of room to try to influence a study, but for organizations that don't have that.

It seems like this really has to start small, if that makes sense, to start with prioritizing your own health and encouraging your team to do the same. And what's been your experience with that? My experience is what you and I discussed previously, and that is Starting with a subset of information or data that makes you comfortable in using it for decision making.

And that can be something like data driven equity. A CIO can use data analytics to identify gender disparities and improve diagnosis accuracy. It can also make an investment in women's health. If you focus on gender specific health issues, gaps in care, and leading to better outcomes and lower health care costs.

Then there's also a win for your organization, getting women to go get their annual mammograms, or getting their colonoscopies, or doing their annual wellness visits. How often do you skip an annual wellness visit because they feel generally okay? And when you can identify those populations and really outreach and say, hey, we're helping you from a preventative perspective.

Then other considerations such as the appropriate use of AI minimize bias in diagnostic treatment plans and the collaboration for gender specific clinical research to help bridge these health care gaps. Those are the areas that you focus on because you have a real world example in front of you and a way to use information that already exists within your organization to apply to better outcomes for both.

the population you're serving, but then also how that has a greater economic impact on an industry because you're going to a preventative perspective versus a treatment perspective, and that's really a place where any patient, male or female, would rather be. Yeah, that's so interesting. We were hearing so much about how now that we have all this data how can we be sure that we're using it in the right ways and that's such an important way to do it.

But then also, Another aspect of this that I find interesting is so much of leadership as we learn through our conversations, through our interviews, is modeling the behavior that you want to see. And for me, if I have managers, who are conscious about their health, who take time off and are really away during that time, I feel like it almost gives other people permission to do the same.

It does give permission people to do the same because to your point, if you don't take your time away from whether it's a full time job or even just full time family care, you give yourself breaks in those instances in your life. A recent study showed that Simone Biles, she significantly impacted mental health landscape for women.

60 percent of women in the U. S. reported that Her openness about her mental health struggle inspired them to prioritize their own mental wellbeing. And think of how much grief she took for originally withdrawing from the Tokyo Olympics when she did, to prioritize her own mental health. And then she comes back, how much stronger the next round.

And she took a couple of years off for that very reason. And she mentioned in an interview that she had said, The degrees of both support and hate were so fascinating that people thought that they could have an opinion about how she was feeling, and she realized it was her responsibility as a role model to help shift societal perspectives on mental health and encourage others to seek care.

I think about that as a female and realizing that Take your PTO, take that day to yourself to recharge and rejuvenate. Take time away from some of your caregiving responsibilities and find someone else to help you with some of that load, because you don't realize the amount of stress that your body is under until you are removed from certain situations.

And we talk often about the sandwich generation, those that are taking care of kids and aging parents and having experienced either side of that in different instances in your lives, it is significantly stressful. on your entire body and your mind when you are taking care of anybody in your life, especially if they're sick.

So therefore, to your point, step away when you can. Find ways to rejuvenate, even if it's a 10 minute middle of the day meditation is an example, but more importantly, we have access to preventative care. And as colleagues and females, you and I can hold each other accountable to our wellness and saying, Hey, did you go get that checkup?

Hey, did you go get this test done? Hey, did you get Your flu shot, your COVID shot, which thank you, Drex, for reminding us all to have done that. And I was a little excited because I'm like, I did both of those. And yet, and I'll share with this audience, I turned 50 this year. My doctor says, time for you to get your shingles vaccination.

And I'm like, what is that going to entail? And he's two shots, a couple of weeks apart, and you're going to feel awful for two or three days after each one. And here I am, haven't yet done it. Why? Because I don't want to do that during a work week. And I don't want to ruin two weekends. And yet, come on, Sarah, you work in healthcare.

You work in these industry for 30 years, go get your vaccinations for shingles, your vaccination, because it's recommended and you should, and it's a good idea. And so me telling this audience and telling you, I have expected you to hold me accountable, hold myself accountable to making sure that by the end of the year, I've actually done this for myself.

Always great. And appreciate you being open about that., You and I even talked earlier about the importance of things like stretching and mobility and all of this is so important. And, going back to the study and all the things that it revealed, as we said earlier, this just shows how important it is for us to just have this conversation, keep having this conversation, make it a dialogue, and.

Hold each other, hold organizations, hold leaders accountable to working towards this because it's unacceptable the way it is. 100 percent agree. If we as leaders, as CIOs impacting the organization that we serve every day is making sure that outdated gender bias in medical research and outreach to disadvantaged populations is a priority for us because in the end, closing that gap is a huge boost not only to the economy, but also to the populations it's intended to serve in the first place.

And so if we're talking about it, it's top of mind, and therefore we can make a difference. Absolutely. Don't forget to share this podcast with a friend or colleague. a foundation for daily or weekly discussions on the topics that are relevant to you and the industry. 📍 They can subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

Thank you so much, Sarah, as always for your contribution. Thank you, Kate. And that's a wrap.