CLINICAL AI

The healthcare system's historical exclusion of women from clinical research has created profound gaps in diagnostic accuracy, treatment efficacy, and health outcomes. In Australia alone, 56% of women over age 15 live with at least one chronic health condition, yet women's health remains under-researched and underfunded, with physicians often basing diagnostics and treatments on data derived predominantly from male subjects. Dr. Ariella Heffernan-Marks, a medical doctor and PhD candidate at The George Institute for Global Health, has emerged as a disruptive force in addressing these systemic inequities through Ovum AI, an artificial intelligence-powered health assistant specifically designed for women's unique physiological needs.
Dr. Heffernan-Marks' journey into healthcare innovation was catalyzed by personal experience with medical gaslighting and marginalization during her medical training. Witnessing firsthand how the healthcare system discriminates against women based on gender, age, sexuality, disability, migration status, and socioeconomic factors, she recognized the urgent need for accessible, women-centric healthcare solutions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she founded Ovum with the vision of creating a comprehensive health tracking system that acknowledges women's integrated and cyclical physiology, addressing the fragmentation that characterizes current women's healthcare delivery.
Ovum's technological infrastructure integrates multiple health data streams into a unified platform, utilizing voice recognition and conversational AI to enable efficient symptom tracking, health goal setting, and personalized health education. The application consolidates health reports, medications, appointment records, menstrual cycle data, and biometric information from wearable devices, creating a longitudinal health record that women control and can share with healthcare providers or research institutions. This approach addresses the critical issue of data sovereignty, empowering women to own their health information in a system where medical data is typically fragmented across multiple institutions and controlled by healthcare providers rather than patients.
Beyond individual health management, Ovum is pioneering Australia's first longitudinal AI women's health dataset, directly addressing the profound research gap that perpetuates diagnostic delays and treatment inadequacies for women. By analyzing patterns across millions of women, Ovum's AI can detect correlations and variations that traditional research methodologies overlook, potentially revolutionizing our understanding of how chronic conditions manifest and progress in female populations. Dr. Heffernan-Marks has prioritized ethical data practices, ensuring that Ovum's AI training relies exclusively on de-identified data and that users maintain complete control over whether to contribute anonymized information to research initiatives.
The artificial intelligence foundation of Ovum presents both transformative potential and inherent challenges. Research has demonstrated that machine learning algorithms trained on historically male-dominated datasets can perpetuate diagnostic biases across different demographic groups, as evidenced by studies showing accuracy variations in diagnosing bacterial vaginosis among different ethnic populations. Dr. Heffernan-Marks acknowledges these concerns but emphasizes that AI, when properly developed with diverse datasets and women-centric medical literature, offers a non-judgmental space where women can ask questions without fear of dismissal or gaslighting—experiences reported by 84% of women in healthcare settings.
The broader implications of Ovum's approach extend beyond individual health outcomes to significant economic and societal benefits. Closing the gender health gap could boost the global economy by over $1 trillion annually by 2040, with the potential to reduce the 75 million years of life lost due to poor health or early death experienced by women each year—equivalent to seven days per woman annually. Ovum's successful $1.7 million pre-seed funding round, noteworthy given that women-led startups receive only 2% of venture capital funding, signals growing recognition of both the moral imperative and economic opportunity in addressing women's health disparities. As Ovum progresses through clinical trials in partnership with The George Institute for Global Health and UNSW, and prepares for broader market release, it represents a paradigm shift toward data-driven, personalized, and equitable healthcare for women across their lifespan.