Arkansas Women's Health Innovation Recap
With Arkansas having some of the lowest maternal outcomes in the nation, Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield and FemHealth Founders have partnered to shed light on how innovation, data, and technology can improve women's health and wellness.
Throughout Northwest Arkansas and across the country, women's health innovation is largely underserved and under-resourced due to a number of factors, starting with the lack of medical research on women's bodies. We discussed this in a recent Women’s Health Innovation Summit, which took place Apr 6, 2023, at the AR BCBS headquarters in Springdale. Martine Pollard, VP, Northwest Arkansas, and Alicia Berkemeyer, EVP, Chief Health Management Officer, welcomed attendees, which included physicians, payors, innovators, investors and other regional leadership focused on healthcare.
Our keynote speaker was Dr. Fahimeh Sasan, Chief Innovation Officer and Founding Physician at Kindbody. In her presentation, she discusses the leading concerns in women's health in the United States, including maternal mortality, heart disease, obesity, mental health, and menopause. She highlighted healthcare access and quality disparities based on social determinants such as income, education, and environment. While Arkansas is taking action in some areas to address maternal mortality and improve access to care, Dr. Sasan emphasized the importance of a preventative and proactive approach to women's health and the role of employers and technology in achieving this goal.
Following Dr. Sasan was a panel discussion on ways the Northwest Arkansas community can help drive women’s health innovation. Panelists shared their recommendations for community members to invest in women’s health innovation, mentor women entrepreneurs, do business with women-led businesses, promote policies in the workplace that support women’s health, and vote in every election.
Panelists included:
Jeannette Balleza Collins, Entrepreneurial Development Consultant, NWA Council (Moderator)
Canem Arkan, Managing Director, Endeavor Heartland
Dr. Anna Daily, Chief Scientific Officer, Namida Lab Inc.
Jacqueline Blocker, J.D., Director of Data and Policy, Metriarch OK
Heather Maxwell, Data Consultant for Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield, delivered a presentation on initiatives that AR BCBS has engaged in to create better health outcomes for women.
To wrap up the summit, the founders of FemHealth Founders (Elizabeth Prenger, April Roy, and Natalie Shew) shared more about the women’s health innovation hub they are building in Northwest Arkansas and the founders they are working with throughout the country. Their organization works to cultivate innovation, validation, mentorship, and investment in women's health and wellness solutions. They advocate that health and well-being are fundamental to equality and shared some of the disparities in women’s health innovation around the country, such as most of the Southern states are in the bottom tier on the Health & Wellbeing Composite Index and only 1% of healthcare research and innovation is invested in female-specific conditions beyond oncology. They noted the massive opportunities in the $1T FemHealth market and encouraged our leadership to support them in building a world-class FemHealth ecosystem in the Heartland.
With a big vision of becoming a healthcare destination and a rapidly growing entrepreneurial ecosystem, Northwest Arkansas has the unique ability to transform women’s health outcomes through collaborative partnerships like the one between Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield and FemHealth Founders.
To learn more about how to get involved in women’s health innovation, contact FemHealth Founders.
