When Dr Ariella Heffernan-Marks was training as a medical doctor, she witnessed first-hand the systemic healthcare issues that women across Australia face.
Whether she was working at a metropolitan, regional or remote hospital, she consistently saw women across socio-economic lines being disempowered by their experiences in the medical system.
It led Dr Heffernan-Marks to found Ovum, an AI-powered personalised health assistant that is set to transform the way women in Australia—and across the world— interact with the health system for the better.
“What I found was that every woman that I saw, was in some way disempowered in their health appointment,” Dr Heffernan-Marks, a medical doctor who majored in reproductive biology turned entrepreneur, tells Women’s Agenda.
“Women were fearful of the healthcare system. They’ve been dismissed, marginalised, or often misdiagnosed.
“So they were either not speaking up in clinical appointments or they weren’t even going to the doctor. They were just going to social media or family and friends.”
Earlier this year, Ovum raised $1.7 million in a pre-seed round—a significant feat considering the stark lack of funding that goes to women-led startups in Australia and globally.
Ovum, an app that’s designed to be integrated at every point of a woman’s health journey, can help women track their symptoms using voice recognition and uses a chat function for accurate and efficient health tracking. It stores health reports, medications, appointments, cycle tracking and biometric data from wearables all in one place.
Dr Heffernan-Marks is determined to use Ovum to address what she describes as a $1 trillion gender health gap that sees women living in poorer health and with more chronic conditions than men.
“In Australia, 56 per cent of Australian women over the age of 15 already have at least one chronic health condition, and women are disproportionately suffering with chronic symptoms compared to men,” she explains.
“I also saw that women’s health was being siloed. Even though our physiology is so integrated and so cyclical, we’re seeing different doctors at different points in our lifespan, and we’re being treated at separate points.
“When I was in medical school, [what we learnt about] women’s health was pregnancy, fertility, menopause and pregnancy complications and that’s it.”
Ovum will pioneer the development of the first-ever longitudinal AI women’s health data set.
Historically, and still today, women are not well represented in research trials which means doctors often base diagnostics and treatments on data that relates to men.
“At a population level, what Ovum is also doing is collecting the first women’s health specific AI, longitudinal data set, which we can then feed back into research and into addressing biases in AI as well,” Dr Heffernan-Marks says.
“Our mission is to transform how every woman experiences healthcare, and to really close the gender health gap, which is costing our economy $1 trillion.”
How AI can be used to transform women’s health
While there are valid concerns about the gender bias ingrained in AI, Dr Heffernan-Marks says it can also be a non-judgemental tool that has the potential to support women who may have been let down in traditional healthcare settings.
“What I found [in my research] is that what AI offers is a non-judgmental space, a space where women can ask questions they maybe wouldn’t otherwise because they are scared of being gaslit or they’re fearful,” Dr Heffernan-Marks says.
Ovum is the first holistic AI health assistant for women, Dr Heffernan-Marks says, explaining that AI is one of the most efficient tools we can utilise to better women’s health experiences.
“What we’re doing with Ovum, is creating a space where women can set health goals and actually have a conversation and learn about how we should engage in those health goals?” she says.
“Because half of the problem is [women] don’t know where to go, and a lot of misinformation on social media means that many women are completely overwhelmed.”
Ovum is also utilising AI to help women integrate and collect data on their health in a rapid way, which can be used to help detect patterns in their own bodies.
“Then on a mass scale, what we’re doing is using AI to look at millions of women and look at patterns at a really large scale to be able to improve our diagnostics, but also our understanding of women’s bodies,” Dr Heffernan-Marks says.
Thanks to our partner CommBank. CommBank supports women in business and the community across all industries and sectors through its Women in Focus team. For more information head to WomeninFocus.com.au.