What HETT 2025 revealed about the future of women’s digital health

At this year’s HETT conference, women’s health wasn’t a side note, it was a main stage conversation. Across panels and roundtables, one message came through clearly: the future of digital health will only succeed if it works for women in all their diversity.

From algorithmic bias to integrated care, the discussions revealed both the progress being made and the deep systemic gaps that persist. As someone working at the intersection of innovation, equity and system transformation, I left the event encouraged by the energy but convinced that technology will only close the gender gap if we consciously design it to do so.

Bias built in: Everyone has a role in dismantling it

I participated in the panel “Making Clinical Systems Work for All – Confronting Bias and Driving Equity,” chaired by Katherine Church, we explored how racial, gender and socioeconomic biases are embedded in the digital infrastructure of healthcare.

Melissa Co explained how inequities within datasets and algorithms translate into real-world costs, missed diagnoses, delayed care and wasted resources. Monica Jones highlighted that data architecture and governance decisions are as critical to equity as clinical pathways themselves. Laura Boyd reminded us that these systems are human-made but changeable when grounded in co-design and lived experience.

As I shared on the panel, the key is to treat equity as a design principle, not a retrospective correction. That means disaggregating our data sets, including missing data from under-represented groups, and empowering informatics teams to surface digital inequities. Rachel McIlroy reinforced this, noting how local population health management insights can identify where digital exclusion silently widens gender health gaps.

The takeaway: equitable data is critical to safer, smarter and more sustainable services for women.

Integrated care: The missing link in women’s digital health

During the session “How Innovative, Integrated Care Models Can Reshape Women’s Health Outcomes,” chaired by myself, we examined how digital tools can help bridge fragmented care and support prevention across the life course.

For too long, women’s health has been siloed into reproductive, mental and long-term conditions each handled in isolation. Aamena Salar talked about the shift toward Women’s Health Hubs and neighbourhood-based integrated care as an opportunity to redesign services around women’s real lives, not institutional structures.

We discussed how digital integration, aligned with population-health data, can help identify local needs, personalise care and enable women to wait well, using technology to provide support, health literacy and continuity while awaiting appointments or procedures.

Sanhita Chakrabarti brought invaluable practical insight from mobilising women’s health hubs across place-based systems, using digital-first group consultations and voluntary-sector partnerships to reduce hospital admissions. Jayprit Serai addressed the postcode lottery of access and the need to listen to women’s voices in the digital landscape. Meanwhile, Amber Vodegel emphasised improving health literacy and engagement through digital channels and social media to meet women where they already are.

The takeaway: Women’s health innovation works best when it’s co-designed with women themselves.

Profit meets purpose: Redefining value

A recurring debate throughout HETT was how to make women’s health technology both equitable and financially viable.

The conversation has evolved from “Is there a business case for women’s health?” to “How do we build one that values impact?” The answer lies in reframing ROI. Instead of asking, What’s the return on investment? we should ask, What’s the return on population impact?

Innovations that improve access to contraception, menopause care or early cancer screening don’t just deliver better health outcomes they enhance workforce participation, reduce long-term acute costs, and build healthier communities.

As Dominique Allwood discussed during the Health Innovation Network Roundtable, aligning commercial and social goals will attract the right partners to scale what works. And, as Lord James Bethell reminded us, government and industry both have a role to play in ensuring women’s health innovation is treated as an economic driver, not a niche concern.

Representation matters: Building a diverse digital workforce

The Shuri Network Roundtable, focused on growing the digital leadership workforce in the NHS. The discussion led by Shera Chok, reinforced to me that representation isn’t a “nice to have,” it’s essential to safe and inclusive innovation for the future.

If algorithms are built by homogeneous teams, bias is inevitable. Diverse digital leadership brings lived experience, empathy, and creativity, all the ingredients needed for equitable design. The session echoed what many of us have seen first-hand: when women of colour are empowered in digital roles, the entire system benefits.

Where next? Turning dialogue into action

HETT 2025 confirmed that women’s digital health is central to the NHS transformation vision set out in the Fit for the Future: 10-Year Health Plan for England. The policy landscape is ready, the technology exists, and the talent is growing, but meaningful progress will depend on turning insights into action. We must co-design with women, invest in diverse leadership, and embed equity into every stage of design and deployment.

The next phase of NHS transformation must therefore move beyond pilots and pockets of good practice to embed women’s health as a structural priority across data, design, delivery and leadership. Only then will digital transformation achieve what it promises: a health system that works for all.