International women’s day and the health industry
Today marks International Women’s Day #IWD2017. For the last two years, in recognition of International Women’s Day, Microsoft has focused on encouraging girls to stay in STEM (Science, Technology, engineering, math) so that we can increase the female workforce of the future (Girls Do Science, #MakeWhatsNext).
As a woman currently working in Technology who previously studied science in University (Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology) I couldn’t be more excited about talking to increasing Women in STEM degrees. Girls have a real passion to address big issues facing the world today and in doing so being part of changing the world of the future—but few of them realize how much STEM is foundational to have the impact they hope to have (only 6.7% of women graduate with STEM degrees).
Health care is unique in that several fields including nursing and physician assistants are predominantly female. Focusing in on nursing, in the US 94.6% of registered nurses are female. (Source) The National Women’s History Museum published an article on why this is the case citing “as caretakers of children, family and community, it was natural that women were the nurses, the caregivers, as human society evolved (source).” Today, in addition to providing care, nurses are also providing strategic direction for hospitals as it applies to care coordination and virtual health. It is exciting to be able to scale what nurses are seeing in their everyday practice and harness to technology to truly provide better patient care. We are proud to partner with intel and nurses around the world to share their stories in health. If you are a nurse who would like to share your story, please email us.
One partner that comes to mind that is harnessing their nursing workforce to improve patient care in Silver Chain. Silver Chain is one of Australia’s largest providers of personal healthcare services, and has implemented Dynamics 365 Field Services for its nursing staff to deliver essential care to patients across Australia. The Silver Chain platform combines Dynamics 365 and field services management on mobile devices to provide a single source of truth of patient data. It means Silver Chain now has real-time patient reporting and has improved transparency of patient care.
Getting back to International Women’s Day, this year, as awareness of girls in STEM careers is generally increasing, as an organization Microsoft is focusing on what girls (and parents and teachers) can do to help solve the problem. This incredibly inspiring “Change the Odds” video asks girls what they would like to do to change the world as it relates to STEM careers. Be a part of the social conversation by using #MakeWhatsNext and #IWD2017. On a global scale, we anticipate 74+ markets in 28+ languages to truly make this a global effort.
An initiative that I also want to bring to your attention tied to International Women’s day (#IWD2017) is the #onething campaign which is raising awareness for maternal rights. Maternal rights and maternal health are the foundation of a healthy society and therefore a more prosperous society. If we care for the health of mother and child we ensure a higher likelihood of access to education, access to jobs and entrepreneurship for women and safety and sustainability of family support. I ask you to think, talk about and share #onething you think has happened in the past year that makes you hopeful for women’s and maternal rights.
In closing, I couldn’t be more excited about increasing awareness for STEM careers for women worldwide. I initially got my start in science at an early age through a public outreach program in Seattle promoting women in science careers. Back then we did not have social platforms to learn from our peers around the world. Collaboration is fundamental to advancing science and technology and I am excited to follow along with the #IWD2017, #MakeWhatsNext and #onething conversations to be inspired by girls, women and mothers on a global stage.
To learn more about some of the topics in this Blog, here are some resources which provide more in-depth information.
Securing Mobile Devices for Remote Patient Monitoring, eBook
