When you watch the NBA, you’re watching men’s basketball by default — you have to specify the WNBA if you want the other one. Healthcare works the same way too often. It was largely designed by and for men: heart disease is the #1 killer of American women, and we’re only recently starting to understand that women’s symptoms and underlying pathology differ from men’s, with men treated as the default and women as the exception.
Women’s health has to include the female-specific topics — menopause, endometriosis — but a holistic approach goes further than that. The business case is already there. The only question left is whether organizations are ready to take off the blinders and build for it.
End of field note 17