The idea of operating specialized “women’s health” programs, units, pavilions, or even separate hospitals (sometimes with “and children’s” added) has been around for decades. Since it has long been known that women make the vast majority of healthcare decisions in the family, and differ from men in terms of what they prefer in healthcare experiences, it seemed to make sense. The concept in operation has had mixed reviews and results, however, with a number of “women’s health” facilities or programs shutting their doors.

The name was never accurate to begin with. Since hospitals are in the sickness business, their attention to women’s health has always been limited. Moreover, women’s health facilities often focused narrowly on only a few conditions that are either unique or most common among women: breast cancer, maternity, and osteoporosis, for example, earning them the general perception that they are simply in the “babies, bones and breasts” business. [T. Abreu “Is Women’s Health Obsolete?” Thomson Healthcare (Webinar) July 2007]

With hospitals almost totally dependent on sickness care revenue for their existence, it has been an understandable focus for their women’s health programs. But there have been changes in the “women’s market” since the idea first became popular, and further changes coming, that make the original translation of the idea increasingly obsolete. These changes threaten to make this translation into practice increasingly inappropriate and unpopular among women, and call for a new vision for women’s health that actually focuses on their health, not their sickness.

One of the major changes is that the “women’s market” is getting older, with a projected increase of 23 million more adult women between 2006 and 2016, 22 million of whom will be over 50. This does not make the maternity market look very appealing, but it does suggest that there will be a big market for chronic condition prevention and management. And with a few exceptions, these chronic conditions will not be exclusive to women, but the same ones that threaten the health and life expectancy of men as well.

Heart disease, for example, is by far the major cause of death among women, with breast cancer causing only a fraction as many, though cancers of all kinds represent the second leading cause of death. Stroke, respiratory diseases, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes, represent the major other causes of death among women, and these are equally the concern of men.

According to the women’s health group “Spirit of Women”, whose hospital members number 55 in 30 states, the women of today and tomorrow will be looking for ways to partner for healthcare providers and each other to live longer and better through maintaining and improving their health, not merely obtaining sickness care in facilities tailored to their sickness care experience preferences.

Instead of wanting special handling when they undergo treatment for conditions special if not unique to them, women are looking for holistic management of their health, with most interest in services that are rarely offered by or confined to hospitals. Medical spas are increasingly popular, for example, as are women only fitness centers such as “Curves”. They are looking for continuous relationships with healthcare providers, not merely occasional episodes, and are looking for healthy and youthful appearance, and the ability to live as well as look better.

The model for women’s health interests may well be reflected in the Kaiser Permanente program labeled “THRIVE”, focused on enabling its members to thrive via a healthy life, more than obtain sickness care. To thrive rather than merely survive means avoiding or managing the conditions that reduce the quality and duration of life for men, as well as women, and avoiding them vs. waiting to be treated for them. It means a true focus on women’s health, rather than sickness care that has been a major source of direct revenue for hospitals, as well as an indirect source through women’s influence on their family members’ sickness care choices.