Women are leading change within the healthcare industry, developing initiatives showcased last week at the Forbes Women's Summit that promote patient engagement and personalized medicine.
"Patients and consumers are driving a difference in change," Deborah DiSanzo, head of IBM's Watson Health unit, said during a panel discussion on new frontiers in healthcare, as reported by Forbes, "and we're doing something that hasn't been done before."
The company uses artificial intelligence programs to examine medical records for patterns and to match patients with potential clinical trials. This process is time consuming, DiSanzo said, and using modern technology like AI would free up precious minutes for physicians.
Another panelist, Deborah Rhodes, an associate medical professor at Mayo Clinic, was involved in developing molecular breast imaging, according to the article, which will provide better mammogram results for patients with dense breasts. She said women's voices will need to be heard to improve such care. "It's going to take women to stand up and say, 'It has to get better,'" she said.
Having women in leadership roles may boost hospital profits, though the hospital sector lags behind a number of others in increasing the number of women in the C-suite, FierceHealthcare previously reported.
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