Bye-Bye Gyno? The At-Home Revolution in Women's Wellness

Source: Nataliya Vaitkevich via pexels.com

The landscape of women's health is rapidly evolving, with a new wave of innovations putting agency and ownership directly into individuals' hands. In this solo episode of Signal Shift, Raakhee explores groundbreaking advancements in at-home medical testing that are set to redefine how women access and manage their healthcare. She introduces Teal Health, offering the first FDA-approved at-home cervical cancer test, and Wisp, a telehealth company expanding into at-home STI, fertility, and menopause testing. Raakhee delves into the implications of these convenient and less invasive options, questioning the future role of traditional gynecologists as technology and personal testing empower individuals. Startup's like Incora Health and their smart earrings, are bridging the gap between consumer wearables and clinical-grade medical devices by providing accurate, cycle-aware health metrics. This episode champions a future where women have unprecedented control over their health, prompting important discussions about accessibility, privacy, and the evolving nature of medical care leading to a revolution in women's wellness.

Selected Links:

• Drees, Robert. "FDA's approval of at-home cervical cancer test creates new opportunities in healthcare." MedCity News, 21 May 2025, medcitynews.com/2025/05/fda-cervical-cancer-healthcare/?utm_source=The+Medical+Futurist+Newsletter&utm_campaign=1ae43ef97a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_02_01_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_efd6a3cd08-1ae43ef97a-420902015&mc_cid=1ae43ef97a&mc_eid=c332a7eb91.

• "Smart Earrings for Fertility Tracking: Incora Health Prepares for Market Debut." Femtech Insider, 17 Apr. 2025, femtechinsider.com/smart-earrings-for-fertility-tracking-incora-health-prepares-for-market-debut/.

• "Wisp Launches At-Home STI Testing to Complete Telehealth Platform." Femtech Insider, 2 May 2024, femtechinsider.com/wisp-launches-at-home-sti-testing-to-complete-telehealth-platform/.

• "Cervical Cancer Screening." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 28 Sept. 2023, www.cdc.gov/cervical-cancer/screening/index.html.

Episode Transcript:

Horizon Shift Lab (00:00)

Hello and welcome to Signal Shift. It's just me, Raakhee, today. So as you know, Sue has been away and we are now in holiday season in summer. We all have different plans. I will be away for a while too. So we've really been mixing up formats and showing up singularly for some of the episodes too, making it work amongst everything else we have going on. So for the next two episodes, it's just me sharing some signals. And then after that, Sue is back in the fold and she has three episodes with signals from some of her travels. So that's going to be really exciting. And then sometime around August, we will be back together and back to normal programming.

In the interim, please let us know in the comments which videos worked or didn't. Did you enjoy the interviews or the ones where we are just sharing signals? Do you like our individual shares like this one or the conversational episodes where we talk to each other? What did you find interesting and maybe why as well? It will really help us deliver the right type of content. So thank you in advance for that feedback. It'll be really helpful.

Now back to today's episode, I'm going to share signals in women's health. Sue's really passionate about this area as well. And we've touched on it in other episodes. But today I'm focusing on a bit of the parts where we get to take agency and ownership. So a lot of things that sit at the sort of at home medical testing realm.

I hope I get to share some interesting signals that you may or may not know about, but I think, again, speaks to things that are coming up on the horizon, right? It's really interesting. So I'll start off with women's health.

And the first one that I want to speak about is one called Teal Health. And they are a startup from San Francisco as they all are. And they have received FDA approval for the very first at home cervical cancer test. So really what this is, is an alternative to the in-office pap smear.

The standard method that is used to screen for cervical cancer that we all have to endure once a year. And I'm pretty sure we all do not enjoy enduring once a year. It's not at all a fun process. And according to the CDC guidelines, women should be tested regularly from the ages of 21 to 65. And yet, yet only one in four women actually gets screened, one in four women within that age range actually gets screened. So yeah, that's a pretty bleak statistic. This should be accessible. It should be something we all do just to eliminate the risk, right?

There's many reasons why I think women don't do this, But one is, of course, just access and cost first and foremost, right? You've got to go in to a gynecologist and do that. And second, even if it may be affordable for some, it's a really uncomfortable procedure. It's very invasive And so a lot of women skip things like this. When you go to the gynecologist when something's not right or you're trying to get pregnant or you are pregnant, but you do try to skip these things in between, because it's not a fun process.

So something like teal health, think, is pretty amazing because it really changes the game in the sense and once you order it's approved you'll speak to somebody and they will explain how you use it and what you've got to do and you ship it off and yeah you know you have that uncomfortable moment with yourself not with your gynecologist and that's fine I'm sure a lot of people will prefer that and it's called a teal wand the actual apparatus is called a teal wand.

Once they have the results, then they will of course communicate that to you. And if in the event that it is something that's positive, or needs a doctor, then that's the next process, the next steps, and you'll go through that. For someone like myself, I would feel more empowered and very comfortable with this kind of process.

This really simplifies it and streamlines the process. And as long as I still have access to professionals, then it's pretty cool. I get it that a lot of people though might have relationship with your gynecologist, right? And that's something that you don't want to lose. And I'd be keen to know how many of you feel that way versus how many feel like this is cool and you'd want to try this and do this.

So the good news is that they're already in network with companies like Aetna, Cigna, United Health, and Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield in California. So they're rolling out in California, but I'm pretty sure they will expand beyond. So that's one to watch out for.

A similar vein, there is another one. It's a women's telehealth company called Wisp,and they already serve 1.5 million customers in the United States. And what they have expanded into now is at home testing and follow up care services, So for various things, you collect samples at home and send it through.

What they have most recently launched is three testing panels for sexually transmitted infections, chlamydia, gonorrhea, and another one. And these are the most common STIs, particularly for women aged under 25. This of course tracks with college life and what may come in that phase. And just, think, the lack of education that a lot of young women might have around sexual health and hygiene and managing those things. it's available across the USA. You get the results in three to five business days.

And I think again, why it fits this demographic is, know, one, like I said, there's a lack of education. They don't know what's happening with their bodies. An infection might, you know, kind of prosper and they might only realize it too late, right? And they find out because their friends and other people around them help them. And I know that colleges and universities

and schools have facilities and some care and some healthcare facilities, but I think it varies, right, from campus to campus. So a lot of people again may not be getting access to something like this and suffering, you know, for an extended period of time when they don't have to. again, something changing that and, you know, young girls being able to take these kind of tests more easily and very quickly.

And maintain their own sexual health and hygiene better. What's also really promising is that they have much more that is coming in fertility and menopause and in the fertility and menopause category. They plan to introduce hormonal health testing kits later this year and at-home blood draw services for things related to fertility and menopause care. So I think, you know, these two areas for so long just very little focus on and now it's really great to see a bigger focus both on fertility but also on menopause as we've seen in the last few years and recognizing that there's a lot that happens with women's bodies during that phase and perimenopause as well.

So before I move on to the third one in a woman's health, I did want to share some of what this was bringing up for me or prompting or some questions. And I'd love to know what you're thinking as well. But, you know, what we've seen over the years, right, is having blood pressure monitors to now see GMs. It looks like home blood draw systems are next or some way to take even our period blood as we've spoken about before and test that, right? But basically being able to really test for a bulk of things within your own home. But another question that this brought up for me, these two particular signals was really are gynecologists, human ones, truly a dying breed, a dying career even one may say.

We know that machines and robots can do certain things and will be doing certain things over the years to come. Many, many people have said all kinds of doctors may disappear as a level and a layer. But specifically thinking about these two and your annual gynecological exam and maybe not having to do that. Also women opting for things like doulas and midwives and more natural ways of delivery.

Now, of course, we also want access to emergency care, right? And that's being a separate thing. And maybe, of course, doctors who and gynecologists who specialize in those areas still functioning within hospitals, along with robots and who knows what else. But really questioning how many gynecologists we're going to need in the future, right? How many of them will be able to operate the way they have in the past?

And what sort of replaces that because machines are really doing so much of this, right? Or we are now able to do so much of it ourselves. So just, think, yeah, I think really something interesting. I will say that I would definitely opt for using something like Teal Health for, and the Teal Wand for a cervical cancer screening test. I know there's some fears around, what if you get it wrong, the risk of getting it wrong?

But again, I weigh this up with, I go in for an exam and the doctor is so quick, sure they know what they're doing. But I think there's a big level of risk that can come with it as well. Whereas if you're educated, you know how to use this tool properly, I think you can get the right swab, And it's easy to do another test and check again instead of having to go back to a doctor's office. I'm seeing really the convenience of something like this.

The third signal I had in the health space for women is a company called Incora Health. They are a femtech startup as well. And what they have launched is smart earrings that track women's health metrics through the year. So basically what they are trying to do is really bridge that gap between consumer wearable, fit-bit, OK, and then a proper medical device, where your readings are accurate enough for clinical settings. It's as good as what would be used in a hospital, in a doctor's office. because the issue we face right now is that medical devices are not designed for wear, everyday wear, certainly. And on the other hand, these sort of easy to wear devices are not necessarily giving you the degree of accuracy or depth that you can get from medical devices.

So they have a partnership with the University of South Carolina School of Medicine and Prisma Health. their real intent is to bridge the gap. That's something that both looks great and you can easily wear, but gives you really accurate, really useful data that would hold up in a clinical setting. And they've got an institutional review board approved clinical trial that really validated that their technology does work compared to other already FDA-cleared devices doing the same thing. And it looked at the accuracy of things like temperature and your heart rate, your blood oxygenation, And this can all be taken through the device that is simply in your ear, which is pretty cool.

And you know, it's very different compared to a wrist worn device and standard medical devices.

They have these gold round little balls. I'm sure they're going to have them in more colors and different looks, but that's the one I've seen. they're earrings. They're simple earrings. They look really cute and I think would pair well with a lot of things.

What's really, really important, though, what I want to highlight about this device is that it's particularly useful for fertility tracking, for menstrual and menopausal tracking, as well as things related to autoimmune and women's health, Because the hormonal stuff falls into play with autoimmune as well. So while most wearables, right, will give you recommendations based on standard sort of information. the words they used is a man's relatively stable hormonal cycle. That's the Oura Ring, Apple Watch, all of them do that, right? They're all based on that. The difference with their device is that it accounts for menstrual phase in its guidance. So, you know, if there's something like you haven't been sleeping well, it would be able to account for the fact that this is where you're at in your cycle.

And maybe your progesterone levels are affecting your sleep, whereas you wouldn't get that level of guidance from some of these other devices because they are based of standard cycles that a man has. This is another one I think I would be happy to invest in. They have not announced a launch date, but they're building a wait list and hoping to make market entry soon. So watch out for that one. It's Incora Health, some interesting things I picked up in the women's health space that I hope you all are excited to learn and hear about as well. And some bigger questions, about what we're gonna see change, I think really soon that we wouldn't have anticipated. coming in the women's health space, like what happens to gynecologists.

So thank you so much for being here and let me know what you thought about me doing this solo episode and what you'd like me to focus on next as well. And I will see you again next week. Bye for now.