In healthcare, every decision is a trade-off. But in women’s health, those trade-offs are often more stark, more personal, and more invisible to the broader system.
Over the last several years, I’ve had the opportunity to build products across the women’s health continuum—from lactation support to non-diet nutrition, hormone care, and gender-affirming services. Each of these experiences taught me that access doesn’t begin with the appointment—and equity doesn’t end with a product launch.
We can’t build equitable solutions without understanding the lived experience behind the data.
While building non-diet, weight-inclusive nutrition services, I saw firsthand how traditional care models often miss the mark—focusing narrowly on weight loss instead of metabolic health, patient history, or the psychological toll of chronic dieting. One study we referenced often in product and growth planning: patients who experienced weight stigma were significantly less likely to seek preventive care, even when fully insured.
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That’s not an access issue on paper—but it’s absolutely an access issue in practice.
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Equity isn’t about extending the same service to everyone. It’s about designing for the differences that matter—and giving people the agency to engage on their own terms.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned: access is a system, not a feature.
You can build the most intuitive digital experience, but if it doesn’t account for:
…it will fall short of its promise.
I think back to our work at Plume, where we supported gender-affirming hormone therapy. The biggest barrier wasn’t patient demand—it was navigating documentation, insurance, and pharmacy workflows across 30+ states and a patchwork of evolving regulations. Real access lives at the intersection of experience, reimbursement, and relationships.
In women’s health especially, access is often mediated by complex life logistics: childcare, stigma, income, or geography. It’s not enough to offer care—we have to make care work.
Every product decision involves trade-offs. But in healthcare, and especially in women’s health, those trade-offs have real consequences.
GLP-1s like Ozempic and Wegovy have brought a new kind of trade-off to the forefront.
On one hand, they’re expanding access to metabolic interventions for patients who’ve long been dismissed or deprioritized. For many, they represent a breakthrough in treating conditions like PCOS, insulin resistance, or postmenopausal weight gain—conditions that have historically been underfunded and undertreated.