HappySneeze

Fresh off the press: Bright news on the Digital Health/mHealth space! The Catalan Public Health System is creating a framework to make apps and digital services accessible to its 8M lives. This includes their own relational apps (read: your chart, appointments, prescriptions, etc) but also therapeutic apps created by 3rd parties. Today they have published the Best Practices Guide to Develop Health Assets for the Public Health System (Guia de Bones Pràctiques per desenvolupar actius digitals per a la ciutadania). Link in comments The guide provides a framework with the requirements to have apps and other digital services integrated (and covered!) by this public payer. All of us in Digital Health understand the need for structure and transparency when dealing with payers. Carme Pratdepàdua Bufill and team at TIC Salut Social Foundation, and Joan Guanyabens Yolanda Portero Elisenda Serra Masip thanks for your leadership in delivering this exhaustive and necessary work. This spirit of ecosystem and partnership is rare in this industry. Can't wait to see the impact this will make in providing equitable access to health and better outcomes for the citizens of Catalunya. #healthequity #accesstohealth #DTX #digitalhealth #publichealth

Developing a DTx or mHealth app? You want to attend this session 👇 (sign up link in comments, streaming available) Learn about how the Catalan Public Health Systems is planning to promote digital solutions to provide equitable access to health in a live session with leaders and notable speakers (myself included 😉 ) tomorrow, July 3, 10-12.30 pm, at 3 Sala d’Actes de l’Edifici Salvany (Carrer Roc Boronat 81 de Barcelona). Ping me if you are attending, I will love to say hi! Sistema de Salut de Catalunya Carme Pratdepàdua Bufill María Jesús Salido Rojo Pere Guerrero Obis Meritxell Davins #healthcare #healthequity #femtech #healthtech #DTx

Femtech is mostly bullshit. Bullshit spun by conference organizers, VCs, and corporations jumping on a conversation that is edgy but that is not turning into real-world transactions the hype would make you assume are happening. We have the data. And then there's those that do the work. Like Dr. Sioned Fôn Jones at BoobyBiome, Hannah Samano at Unfabled and Alice Pelton at The Lowdown. I had the privilege to moderate the panel Femtech Heroes: Untold Stories at Decoding the Future of Women conference this month. My goal was to energize those in the audience who wanted to start up their own Femtech companies. However, as the session progressed, we, for once, decided to tell real, raw stories instead of "focusing on the positive," as we tend to do in public speaking. Their stories about fundraising, managing real life with modest salaries, and being solo female founders were sobering, and I think some of the aspiring startup founders in the room walked out a bit less energized than when they walked in. And that may be a good thing. Our time, funds, and sanity are valuable. Think twice before you quit your job to become a Femtech founder. Again, data shows that the odds are not on our side. I ask us, Femtech founders and operators, to call on the bullshit we are hearing and getting so we can make real progress. I wish you all a good weekend with restful sleep, you know what I mean ❤️

The "Scaling Digital Health" white paper written by Founders Intelligence, an Accenture company, is out. We had the privilege to contribute our experience as an #earlystagestartup in #healthcare and #femtech specifically. You can download the report here: https://lnkd.in/dBMCmy2t Alternative financing and reimbursement models are needed to scale up digital health. We shared how insurance reimbursement models are at odds with digital health, forcing complex models that are unjustified from a patient experience or health outcomes point of view. And also how most investors frown upon simpler solutions that don't use complex or expensive tech, even when they have a good product-market fit and can radically increase access because they are affordable. Thanks Dr. Benjamin Jones for the opportunity! #digitalhealth #healthtech #femtech #femalefounder

Summer Intern Announcement! Aisha Tipnis joins us from Brown University with a B.A. in Science, Technology, and Society. Aisha has an expansive background across sexual and reproductive health fields: she conducted policy research with The Reproductive Health Access Project, organized community education initiatives with the Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, and even wrote her bachelor's thesis on the gynecological pelvic exam! For the past two years, Aisha has worked as a Research Assistant at Brown's Sexual Health and Reproductive Experiences Lab. Her project of focus involved interviewing Black and Latina women who use drugs to analyze their access (or lack thereof) to reproductive and sexual healthcare services. In her free time, you can find Aisha on a mile-long run, listening to live music, or baking without a recipe. We met Aisha through Extern, where we are Design Partners. Thanks Michael Guerrero and Monika Chadda for such a productive company-student relationship! Welcome Aisha! #summerintern #femtech #startupfounder #womenshealth

Hey Decoding crowd! Ready for Day 2? I will be moderating the FemTech Heroes: Untold Stories panel at 9:50am today with brilliant founders Hannah Samano of Unfabled, Dr. Sioned Fôn Jones of BoobyBiome, Alice Pelton of The Lowdown, and Camilla Rogers, special counsel at Covington & Burling LLP who is sponsoring the panel (thank you guys!) If you are an early-stage founder or thinking of starting up, you cannot miss this session. We will go raw and real on what it takes to make it and how to keep your sanity and personal life functioning in the meantime. See you in a bit!

HappySneeze has spent the last 2 days in Munich attending the #EssityStartupDays by Essity Ventures. It has been a whirlwind of knowledge, connections, and activism around women's health and well-being. It is such a boost of energy and optimism when you see founders working on pressing issues such as period pain, affordable access to menstrual products, or non-hormonal fertility treatments with ingenuity and grit. The future is bright! #funfact: they have the best stocked-up bathroom on the planet! Thank you Kai Thornagel, Tilda Selemark and everyone at the #EssityVenturesEssityVenturesEssityVentures team for inviting us #essityventures #femalefounder #womenshealth #startup

Wanna get the raw, unfiltered, not-for-the-faint-of heart truth about taking a FemTech startup to growth stage? I will be moderating the FemTech Heroes: Untold Stories panel with three trailblazing founders: Hannah Samano of Unfabled, Alice Pelton of The Lowdown, and Dr. Sioned Fôn Jones of BoobyBiome Early-stage founders, this panel is one big IV shot of inspiration, grit, and humor to keep us all in the game and playing big! Join us at Decoding The Future Of Women in London, June 10-11, organized by FemTech Lab #femtech #femalefounder #startup #healthtech #conference

ETA: We now have 700 signatures! Can you help us get to 1000?? THANK YOU! 🎉 Calling all women's health advocates (really just all women and people who care about women 😉)! We have 300 signatures...can you help us get to 500?? 💡You may remember in December that we made our voices heard with over 1000 signatures on our letter to the White House addressing women's health gaps! That was AMAZING. Since then, 20 initiatives have been unveiled by President Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden including a $12 BILLION effort. 📣To keep the ball rolling for women, we need your voices again. We need Congress to include funding increases in the FY2025 appropriations legislation. Please co-sign this letter to Congress to advocate for increased funding for women's health research TODAY and share in your networks by April 15th. Here is the link! https://lnkd.in/gwdj_hc7 ✅These efforts will continue to make progress in our top areas of need including inclusive data collection/analysis, funding of innovations for women's health, changes in unfair regulatory practices, care for women veterans, and AI safety for women. Here is a summary of the included funding spend: 1 . Add $500 million to the NIH Common Fund within the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill focused on women’s health research and innovation, increasing the FY23 budget of $735 million to $1.235 billion 2. Double the funding for the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health from FY24 budget of $76.48 million to $153.9 million 3. Establish a $10 million FDA Center of Excellence on Women’s Health Innovation to ensure clinical trial design is representative of disease impact in the broader population, and includes a fast track process in women’s health 4. Create $50 million Women’s Health Research Program within the DoD Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program within the Defense Appropriations bill and require an annual report to Congress of the amount and percentage of funding for women’s health research within the agency 5. Include $13.7 billion for women Veterans’ healthcare 6. Establish a $10 million NSF Women’s Health Innovation Program to advance the health of women in recognition of the historical exclusion of women limiting accuracy of data used in AI to ensure bias that can be harmful is eliminated Let's do this! Liz Powell, Karla Loken DO OBGYN FACOOG, Santosh Pandipati, MD, FACOG, Pita Navarro, Piraye Beim, Alicia Chong Rodriguez, Jamie White, Madeleine L., Linda Greub, CFA, MBA, Alice Zheng, Elizabeth Bailey, Kerry Rupp, Abbie Strabala, Somna P., Jessica Karr, Lebone C. Moses, Anula Jayasuriya, Stasia Obremskey, Jessica J. Federer, Christina K. Isacson Ph.D., Linda Goler Blount, MPH, Nada (Osman) Hanafi, Lynae Brayboy, MD, Mitzi Krockover, MD, Valerie Palmieri, Elizabeth Garner, Alison Cowan, Katie Collins, The White House, US Congress, #womenshealth #health #healthcare #