Healthcare technology focused on women’s health is on the move upward. While historically, investments in healthcare technologies and products for women’s health have been low, a few years ago investments began an uptick, totaling $354 million in 2017 with an expected “femtech” global market potential expected to reach $60 billion by 2027. Femtech refers to innovative software, diagnostics, apps and products to address menstruation, fertility, menopause, chronic conditions, sexual wellness and general healthcare specific to women. It’s not a new concept that women have many unique health issues – pregnancy, childbirth and menopause; and that women also experience other health issues differently than men. Now there are more and more technology-based initiatives aimed at supporting the unique health needs of women. Healthcare Teams Serving Women Need Access to the Complete Patient Narrative This is good because, according to the Commonwealth Fund report, women need more routine medical attention than men and also are more likely to have conditions that require ongoing medical attention – family planning, reproductive healthcare, perinatal screening, mammograms, cervical cancer screenings and more. This specialized care often involves primary care physicians, gynecologists and other specialists. A robust medical record system that can be accessed throughout the care network is key to maintaining this information and providing women with solid care over time. And with multiple providers supporting one female patient, experts suggest that to truly upgrade women’s healthcare, there needs to be a continuous relationship with a warm handoff during transitions to specialists as needed. Women have more Chronic Conditions than Men As technology tools continue to advance, the role of the complete and long-term medical record in women’s health remains significant. Approximately 71% of women 55 and older have at least one chronic condition (heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, kidney disease, etc.) that likely requires long-term medical care. This is about 5% higher than the chronic conditions for men. Women with two or more chronic conditions also outpace men by almost 10%. As women continue to work with multiple providers over their lifetime, the medical record and access to legacy health records are vital. Women’s health focused EMRs including Praxis, NextGen, ObGyn-Cloud, NueMD, InSync Healthcare Solutions and others often are utilized to help document and retain women’s healthcare records. Over time, as systems are upgraded or sunset, there needs to be a systematic plan to meet record retention and data storage guidelines set by the specialty, state and HIPAA requirements. Record, Retain and Secure Access for the Complete Lifecycle for Women’s Health Data Migrating and storing legacy health data into an active EMR archive, like HealthData Archiver®, makes all legacy health data accessible to physicians at the point of care (wherever that may be). It also makes it easier for the HIM team that needs to fulfill a release of information request and for the revenue cycle team that may need to perform legacy A/R Management. Our team has award-winning experience in extracting, migrating and archiving data and images from over 500 software brands. Harmony Healthcare IT’s cloud-based storage solutions, HealthData Archiver® and HealthData AR Manager® provide options to enable stored data for interoperability leveraging HealthData Integrator®. Our team is ranked number one as the top Data Archiving, Data Extraction and Migration company according to Black Book™ Rankings, a division of Black Book™ Market Research. We’ve earned this ranking three years in a row. We can help your team retain your women’s health records, and all records, in a discrete and secure active archive. The complete medical record becomes available with just a few clicks and a single sign-on from the active EMR. Thinking about Femtech and wondering how you’re going to integrate the health data within your care? Contact us. Editor’s Note: This blog has been updated from the original post on January 14, 2021.