AI revolution to play crucial role in bringing women’s health care up to date
Innovations in femtech are set to transform healthcare inequality by focusing on prevention, early diagnosis and precision
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming many industries, and healthcare is no exception. Innovations like AI-enhanced scans, real-time monitoring and personalised therapies are revolutionising lab testing platforms and precision health management. These advances offer more efficient and accessible healthcare solutions, potentially shifting patients’ focus from treatment towards prevention.
Dr Stephen Lam Tak Sum, a clinical geneticist at Hong Kong Sanatorium & Hospital, emphasises the importance of this development. “[Prevention] helps in reducing suffering and risk; decreases healthcare costs; increases efficiency, productivity and enjoyment of life; ensures long-term sustainability; and [helps] address the root causes of problems such as unhealthy lifestyle choices and environmental factors,” he explains.
As research and digital tools have advanced, the femtech market has seen significant growth and is projected to be worth US$97 billion by 2030, as per Unicef.
One product leading this charge is Ovum, an app designed as a digital hub for medical test results and referrals. The product was created to help women who suffer from pain and fertility problems reach a diagnosis earlier and to give women more control over their health data. Users can question the platform and track not only their cycle but also the progression of health issues.
It is “the first AI-powered conversational agent designed to support all women across every stage of life – integrating biometric and pathological data in one place to deliver truly personalised health insights”, according to its founder Dr Ariella Heffernan-Marks.
Heffernan-Marks, who recently spoke at the Women’s Health in Focus summit in Hong Kong, believes that when properly utilised, AI has the potential to transform women’s health outcomes.
“When AI is trained on unbiased data and designed with women in mind, it can offer a powerful solution to improving women’s health around the world,” Heffernan-Marks says, noting that the 2024 Closing the Women’s Health Gap report by McKinsey & Company specifically recommended using AI, alongside unbiased data sets and other technology, to address this.
According to the report, the “gap” refers to the “25 per cent more time that women spend in ‘poor health’ relative to men”, at a global cost of US$1 trillion annually.
Most innovations in women’s health currently focus on reproductive health through wearable devices, image and tissue analysis, and mobile applications. However, Heffernan-Marks stresses that “women’s health is broader than only women-specific conditions”. She advocates for expanding AI’s application into other areas, such as conditions that disproportionately affect women or manifest differently in them compared to in men.
AI-supported real-time health monitoring of the kind offered by Ovum is an indispensable part of personalised medicine. It is being used on a wider scale in Precision Health Management – Monitoring, a multi-company initiative creating Hong Kong’s first closed-loop system designed to interrupt disease pathways. This “health management experience” combines local company iOmics Lifesciences’ “multi-omics profiling” – which analyses genomic, proteomic and metabolic biomarkers to identify hidden health risks up to five years before disease onset – with health solutions company Withings’ remote patient monitoring (WRPM) devices. These devices connect households to a medical-grade cloud platform that provides health management services and professional follow-up.
“I strongly believe that AI will be the key to truly transforming healthcare, shifting it from the doctor’s operating room back into our own hands,” says Johnny Li, founder and CEO of iOmics Lifesciences. Li’s recent collaboration exemplifies this by combining 24-hour home health monitoring with professional support. iOmics’ AI-driven analytics platform will integrate with Withings’ continuous physiological data in personalised risk alerts and prevention strategies.
“Looking forward, I see AI transforming women’s health through truly personalised healthcare that considers not just genetic factors, but the dynamic nature of women’s hormonal cycles, life stages and unique physiological responses, ultimately moving us toward a healthcare system that truly understands and serves women’s distinct health needs,” says Li.
Challenges remain, primarily due to male-dominated data sets stemming from a historical lack of clinical research on women. “AI is based on outputs from global data,” Heffernan-Marks points out. “With algorithms also biased, this can lead to biased AI outputs.”
The solution, says Li, is in “ensuring these AI systems are trained on diverse, representative data sets and developed with women’s voices at the centre of the design process”. By addressing these fundamental biases, AI may be able to deliver equitable healthcare for all.