The fight for women’s health: Are we losing?

About a month ago, someone who I’d just met asked me what I was most optimistic about in women’s health.

I paused. I thought. And I realized my optimism felt zapped. Me, the eternal optimist, had nothing to say on the matter.

As a CEO and Founder, I have no reason to feel pessimistic. Wildflower Health has turned the corner on our journey to value-based and virtual care enablement. 2024 was a double-digit growth rate year where we hit key milestones, delivering our first value-based OB program savings share, and launching an ancillary care program for lactation and doula. We expect 2025 to be another record year.

And yet, despite the success of Wildflower and that of many other innovative women’s health companies, I can’t help but feel that we aren’t doing enough as an industry to fulfill the promise of healthcare innovation for women. As an industry, we have yet to radically transform the experience, quality and affordability of women’s healthcare.

In fact, some days, reading the headlines, it feels as if it is getting worse.

• Women’s life expectancy is at its lowest point since 2006.
• Medicaid cuts being considered by Congress may accelerate hospital closures in regions where maternity care is already in short supply.
• Maternal mortality rates continue to be unacceptable, and there is evidence that abortion bans further compromise maternal health safety.
• Science focused on women is poised to take a significant step backwards given the cuts to federally-funded research, particularly in light of reports that even the word “women” is a trigger word for federal reviews of research that may be blocked.

Clearly, women’s health in the United States is under threat, in spite of the fact that the opportunity to improve women’s healthcare represents nearly $1 trillion globally. Care spent on women in private insurance and Medicaid in the U.S. alone tops $700 billion in healthcare cost.

The magnitude of the problem should be galvanizing and enable women’s health innovators to succeed, but it doesn’t necessarily play out that way. Despite the flurry of exciting funding announcements, innovating in women’s health is incredibly difficult. We’ve seen several promising companies shutter in recent months, including Ruth Health and HERMD.

There’s no doubt that working in women’s health requires grit, creative problem solving, and commitment to collaboration. It also requires being clear-eyed about the very real challenges we face. Recognizing our challenges and setbacks isn’t pessimism, it’s just realism.

Fortunately, with Wildflower working in communities across the country to build value-based care hubs in OB/GYN, I get to meet clinicians, community leaders, health plan and health system executives, and investors who are working vigorously to come together and truly transform women’s health. These are the people across our country who will not give up the fight, and who are working tirelessly to overcome the obstacles we face as an industry. They are not giving up on real change in women’s health, and neither am I.

And that’s something to be optimistic about.

Read more in my next post: I share a perspective on the structural aspects of the healthcare system that make innovating in women’s care particularly difficult.