Women's health: AI and addressing disparities

In the last decade, a growing amount of research has increasingly exposed how a lack of funding for medical and pharmaceutical research around women’s bodies has put both patients and clinicians at a disadvantage for treating even common illnesses. With a lack of knowledge and awareness on women’s health, clinicians don’t have the data with which they need to practice, and patients don’t feel heard, some even experiencing bias at the bedside. How can AI and other technologies help address some of these challenges?

Listen in on this first episode of a two-part series.

Featuring:

• Moderator: Nasim Afsar M.D., MBA, chief health officer, Oracle Health
• Christy Dueck, Ph.D., global head of the Learning Health Network and Health System Activation, Oracle Health
• Esther Gathogo, M.Pharm., Ph.D., senior performance improvement leader, Oracle Health
• Sarah Matt, M.D., MBA, vice president, physician and healthcare technology executive, Oracle Health

Listen as they discuss:

The moment they realized, personally or professionally, there was a gap in women’s health care (2:47)

• In practice for oncology patient
• Collegiate athlete performance
• Menstrual health care in school settings
• In practice, while pregnant

What is being done to address the lack of research on women and diversity amongst women (10:56)

• Representation in clinical trials
• Product development
• Expanding inclusivity in EHR data

What can be done to help address the lack of women and women of color in clinical studies (15:11)

The role of AI in care delivery (17:15)

• Tips for training AI algorithms
• Burnout, patient engagement, automation

Notable quotes:

“When we think about women's health in general, using more automation, using more AI/ML, could it help women in their ability to get care for themselves? It absolutely could … Because right now I think what we're finding is that the system’s stressed, all the people are stressed, the patients are stressed. Everyone needs a break and we can't do more with less. We're going to have to do things differently.” – Dr. Sarah Matt

“At the end of the day, we want to make, just like you said, those 15 minutes with the community members that you serve more impactful and with the option to bring more innovative things to your community than ever before.” – Christy Dueck, Ph.D.

“And we know that if there's such a low representation of women in clinical trials, it means that products are being approved without the representation of these women. And it means that the real-world evidence then becomes really important. If we are then using these products, we have to understand the female body and the diversity—in terms of the genetic background as well—and that diversity means that they might respond differently to the approved medicines. It’s also thinking about how to recruit and making it a lot simpler for women to understand the products.” – Esther Gathogo, M.Pharm, Ph.D.

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Episode Transcript:

00:00:00

Nasim Afsar You're listening to Perspectives on Health and Tech, a podcast by Oracle with conversations about connecting people, data and technology to help improve health for everyone. 

Today on the podcast, we're discussing women and health equity. From personal and professional experience, how we've become familiar with the lack of resources and research on women's health and how AI and other technologies can help address some of these challenges.

00:00:35

Hi, I'm Dr. Nasim Afsar, chief health officer at Oracle Health. And joining me today on the podcast are three of my colleagues from around the world. I'll ask them to introduce themselves and give a brief overview of what they do.

Sarah Matt

Thanks, Nasim. I'm Dr. Sarah Matt. I