Karen Stander, VP of Physical Therapy and Women's Health at Hinge Health, joins ChedHER to discuss the state of access to pelvic healthcare, how to break the stigma of pelvic health, and ways employers can bridge this gap.

Breaking Down the Stigma of Pelvic Health

the pandemic has changed the way we view telehealth. This digital first approach can reproduce so many barriers to care, especially for women in more rural areas, Hinge health is a $6.2 billion healthcare tech company taking a unique approach to meeting women's health needs. And joining us now is Karen Standard VP of Physical therapy and women's health at Hinge. Karen, thank you so much for joining us this morning. Can you tell us more about the mission? It hinge health and what solutions it offers for women? Great, thanks so much for having me. Hinge Health is dedicated to being the most patient centric digital clinic and musculoskeletal care. So that's paying any conditions affecting your bow and your joints. Your muscles were really excited here to talk about our women's pelvic health program which addresses pelvic health. It's such a big problem. Um, one in four women will be impacted by pelvic health disorder. That can range from chronic pain in the pelvic area. It can come from traumatic events such as childbirth, your apps separating it can mean incontinence, you know, your problems urinating or all sorts of issues around in that area, in which your muscles are interconnected with your core, your abdomen, your hip. And so it's such an important area that we're hoping to make a big impact in. Now, Karen, you said this is an issue that affects so many women, but it's one that's not spoken about often enough. Can you tell us a little bit about what kind of a care gap there is with pelvic health for women. Yeah. So one in four women and again not just women who have given birth to a child. Um you know women as young as 20 years all the way through your menopause, your older years can be impacted by public health because there's so much stigma involved. It's a very private area right? People don't really want to talk about their private parts and and pain in that area, it often doesn't come up and when it does it's very common for you know if you are talking to your mom or your aunt, your sister, your you know your girl for, oh that's just a part of aging, right? That's just a part of giving birth and having a you know having a child just deal with it. So there's a lot of shame and stigma and even bringing it up and once women do bring it up they often don't care. Um Studies show that takes about six years on average for women to get care for pelvic health even when they receive a referral on top of that. If you're in a rural area, it's very hard to find a pelvic health therapist which is a P. T. Training pelvic health. So him child has this program which we offer telehealth services. We have a pelvic health therapist nationally who are able to see you within the same day, we pair you with a health coach that helps you really make sure those exercises are integrated your daily life and modify lifestyle, behavior recommendations. Um this really holistic care team is the best approach for for women who just don't want to talk about the condition but we really want to bring it to the forefront, make sure they have care that they need. Yeah. And I think a lot of women can kind of relate to that experience of telling a doctor that they are experiencing something and having it completely written off. So these services are incredibly important that you're providing here. You mentioned a couple of ways that hinge health is kind of closing these gaps. Give us a little bit more detail on that, you know the pelvic health care offerings that you have right? So um of course telehealth is really important. You know with telehealth you don't have the inconvenience of travel of wait times etcetera. But it's more than just delivering health, you know through an app or through the computer. We bring technology to do that. So we have wearable sensors, we have computer vision. So as you're doing these exercises you're getting real time feedback and how to do them correctly and not just hurting yourself or we're doing things wrong. Um Again we pair that with the health coach and then we also bring a lot of education to the app as well. We know that you know caring for yourself is not just doing the movements, not just student exercises, it's being educated empowered about your anatomy. What feels better, um, what can you do about it. Um, and then lastly we have a groups functionality. So connecting with women again, across the nation are going through the same thing. It's really powerful to be able to share your story here from others and learn from them as well. Now. How can employers prioritize public health in order to bridge again that gap in care that we've been talking about? Yeah, great question. Um, so hinge health is used by more than four and five employers who have a muscular skeletal uh benefits program. So we really encourage employers to think about this care gap when um, they're thinking about inclusive benefits for the employee population. So women making more than 50% of the population more in some industries. Right. And a lot of times employers just look at fertility benefits or family planning, which is very, very important. But that's only one slice of the picture for women. Hell public health applies to all stages of life. So if you just focus on fertility or just focus on flying planning, you're missing a big chunk of your female population that has a great need. So I encourage employers benefit leaders and even those in your companies that have access to advocating for women and their health needs to really think about pelvic care options and whatever they are for your company. We talked a little bit earlier about the stigma that surrounds pelvic health. How can we break that down? Yeah, I think it's about bringing into conversation. So I'm so glad to be here on with you today to talk about it, encourage women to talk to their physicians about it. Um, and and talk to their friends, their families and just really normalize the conversation. Um, it's so important just to bring it out there and continue having it so that you know that you're not alone. Karen thank you so much for your time today and for having this important conversation to your point about pelvic health. That's Karen Standard VP of physical therapy and women's health at himself.