I also find it funny how many founders building useful things in the women’s health space are told by investors that they won’t invest in startups that build measurement, awareness, or tracking tools that don’t tie into actual treatment/results/billing codes because it’s not a full journey.
Meanwhile “hormone monitoring” is proof that many are happy to invest in solution-less tracking as long as the hype is there. 🙄
Thank you so much for writing this! I hope it spreads far and wide. I once had a patient bring me in a 50+ page document of urine testing that she had had done with a functional medicine practitioner. Her concern was whether or not she was in perimenopause and wanted to know whether she would benefit from hormones.
After a dutiful but mainly theatrical peruse of the results (honestly they were so obscure I had no idea what I was looking at), I tried to tactfully put the report to the side and ask her what she was feeling, what symptoms she was having, how it was affecting her life. She stormed out!
Yes! Thank you for this article. I really enjoyed the image of my gyno drowning in PDFs. (Probably because she had that look on her face when I brought my notebook of symptoms to her last year to get her to believe me that I have endometriosis lol)
My husband is a physician and he always harps on “what question are you asking when you run a test?” Data without a question is just meaningless and “full work up tests” can be frivolous. People often end up getting false positives when you test for too much. And in a healthcare system like the US, that matters because you could spend thousands of dollars on additional testing when you didn’t need to.
Which brings me to your point about these outputs not being validated. I’m sure you know this, but in case some readers in the comments don’t, validation is incredibly important and is necessary to get approval from a health regulatory authority that device can be used for that one specific health measurement. It’s only AFTER the regulator approves the device for that measurement that it can then be officially tied to a CPT code for billing. For example, the Apple Watch tried for years to get FDA clearance as a health monitoring device. Even now, close to a decade after its launch and with all of the health parameters it measures it is only has FDA clearance for irregular heart rhythm notification, atrial fibrillation, sleep apnea detection, and hypertension detection. It’s also no mistake that almost all of these are related to the cardiovascular system in some way but my comment has already turned in to a novel. Thanks again for a well written piece!
Yes. Thank your doctor husband for repeating something often said in clinical practice: don’t get a test that won’t change your management! And also for clarifying the issue around validation. I learned something here.
I imagine physicians are faced with an enormous about of wearable data these days that they simply can't use.
Agreed. Sadly I think the reaction to that is "they don't care" rather than "they don't have anything to do with that!"
I also find it funny how many founders building useful things in the women’s health space are told by investors that they won’t invest in startups that build measurement, awareness, or tracking tools that don’t tie into actual treatment/results/billing codes because it’s not a full journey.
Meanwhile “hormone monitoring” is proof that many are happy to invest in solution-less tracking as long as the hype is there. 🙄
1000% This is one area where I am watching investor after investor throw money at what sounds sexy without really thinking it through.
Thank you so much for writing this! I hope it spreads far and wide. I once had a patient bring me in a 50+ page document of urine testing that she had had done with a functional medicine practitioner. Her concern was whether or not she was in perimenopause and wanted to know whether she would benefit from hormones.
After a dutiful but mainly theatrical peruse of the results (honestly they were so obscure I had no idea what I was looking at), I tried to tactfully put the report to the side and ask her what she was feeling, what symptoms she was having, how it was affecting her life. She stormed out!
Yes! Thank you for this article. I really enjoyed the image of my gyno drowning in PDFs. (Probably because she had that look on her face when I brought my notebook of symptoms to her last year to get her to believe me that I have endometriosis lol)
My husband is a physician and he always harps on “what question are you asking when you run a test?” Data without a question is just meaningless and “full work up tests” can be frivolous. People often end up getting false positives when you test for too much. And in a healthcare system like the US, that matters because you could spend thousands of dollars on additional testing when you didn’t need to.
Which brings me to your point about these outputs not being validated. I’m sure you know this, but in case some readers in the comments don’t, validation is incredibly important and is necessary to get approval from a health regulatory authority that device can be used for that one specific health measurement. It’s only AFTER the regulator approves the device for that measurement that it can then be officially tied to a CPT code for billing. For example, the Apple Watch tried for years to get FDA clearance as a health monitoring device. Even now, close to a decade after its launch and with all of the health parameters it measures it is only has FDA clearance for irregular heart rhythm notification, atrial fibrillation, sleep apnea detection, and hypertension detection. It’s also no mistake that almost all of these are related to the cardiovascular system in some way but my comment has already turned in to a novel. Thanks again for a well written piece!
Yes. Thank your doctor husband for repeating something often said in clinical practice: don’t get a test that won’t change your management! And also for clarifying the issue around validation. I learned something here.
Thanks for your perspective and explanation. You have made a complex subject quite clear. That clarity is important for investors and consumers alike.