Kearney Calls for Improved Gender Equity in Healthcare
Leading global management consulting firm Kearney is spearheading a review of women’s health and calling for improving gender equity in healthcare.
The company has released an open letter and report addressing those within the healthcare ecosystem whose innovations have impact and decisions have power, from pharma, biotech, and medtech firms to investors, tech companies, and consumer health players serving women and girls.
It has been signed by leading organisations across the healthcare value chain including Ferring, UCB, Roche, GE Healthcare, SAP, Salesforce, Tech Mahindra and Microsoft.
Prioritising women’s health
The letter was launched at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, as part of the spotlight on women’s health during which the Global Alliance for Women's Health, of which Kearney is a member, launched.
“Women biology is largely misunderstood due to a lack of investment and a lack of importance placed on women by society,” Paula Bellostas, Partner at Kearney, told Healthcare Digital.
As a partner in Kearney’s Health and Digital Practices, Bellostas works with leading global biopharmaceutical companies at the intersection of medicine and technology to improve patient outcomes. She is Kearney’s global mental health and wellbeing program lead, as well as a mental health advocate who volunteers with Samaritans.
“This is leading to women having significantly slower diagnoses, poorer outcomes and more frustrating experiences when engaging with the healthcare system. We are treating 52% of the population inequitably and this presents both a moral and economic opportunity that needs to be unlocked.
“But redesigning healthcare putting true equity at its core is a very complex problem which will only be solved through collaboration across and beyond the sector. With this open letter, we are hoping to build a community that can share, experiment and partner so that we close the gender gap much faster than if every organisation was acting alone. We are looking forward to starting to work with our signatories and continuing to grow our community so we can improve the health of women worldwide.”
Also launched at the WEF Annual Meeting is research identifying how failings in the health industry can be addressed to cut down the time women spend in poor health by almost two-thirds, and improve the health of over 3.9 billion people. The report titled Closing the Women’s Health Gap: A $1 Trillion Opportunity to Improve Lives and Economies, finds that US$1tn could be added to the global economy annually by 2040 by addressing the global healthcare gender gap.
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