By Karen Perks
From the October edition, MiKare Corner will be interviewing She Talkers who specialize in the many complex areas of women’s health for their valued opinions. Our corner will enlighten, inform, and engage our whole community on the importance of
holistic health – physical, mental and social. We look forward to interesting and fun conversations with our community of amazing women.
This month let’s start at the beginning with the importance of holistic health and you.
The Rise of Women’s Health Apps
Browse any app store today, and you’ll find numerous women’s health applications designed to:
- Monitor menstrual cycles
- Predict fertility periods
- Support pregnancy monitoring
- Help with menopause management
These apps have helped normalize conversations once kept quiet and empowered women to track their health in areas often overlooked by traditional healthcare.
The Challenge: Fragmentation
Most of these apps concentrate on only one aspect of the body or a specific stage of life. Each exists separately—menstrual cycles, fertility tracking, pregnancy, or menopause—reflecting the fragmented nature of many women’s healthcare journeys.
The Bigger Picture: Whole-Person Health
Health cannot be separated into compartments. Our bodies are complex, interconnected systems influenced by:
- Stress
- Sleep
- Mental health
- Nutrition
- Genetics
- Chronic conditions
Using a single app to record symptoms may provide limited insights, but it does not reveal the full story of a woman’s health journey.
The problem with “single-issue” health apps
Cycle tracking apps dominate the femtech market, trusted by millions to monitor periods and plan pregnancies. Yet beyond menstruation, they rarely address bone health, heart disease risk, or mental well-being. Menopause-focused tools might log hot flashes and offer advice, but they don’t integrate mammogram results or highlight links between recurring migraines and blood pressure medication.
As a result, women use different apps at various stages without a seamless connection. This isolated approach risks reinforcing an outdated view of women’s health as a series of “parts” rather than recognising women as complete, complex individuals whose needs change over their lifetime.
Consider this scenario: a woman in her late thirties uses a fertility app while also tracking migraines separately and logging fitness activity elsewhere. When she sees her GP, she focuses on fertility. Still, she doesn’t mention her migraines, even though a connection between her cycle and symptoms could be obvious if all her data were integrated.
Later in life, she records hot flashes in a menopause app, but her cardiologist remains unaware, despite hormone fluctuations being a recognised risk factor for cardiovascular disease. This fragmented approach means the bigger picture and vital health connections are missed.
Why MiKare is different
MiKare Health was established on a straightforward idea: that patients can close the gaps left by fragmented healthcare systems. Instead of duplicating hospital records, MiKare offers individuals a personal health record they carry throughout their life, covering all bodily systems.
For women, this means freedom from having to choose between multiple apps for specific aspects, such as cycles, bone health, or mental well-being. MiKare brings everything together: menstrual cycles, fertility milestones, menopause stages, chronic conditions, dental check-ups, eye examinations, vaccination records for children, and care plans for aging parents.
It’s not about one part. It’s about the whole story.
The Family Dimension
Most women’s health apps overlook another reality: women often serve as the primary organizers of family health. From managing immunization schedules for children to overseeing medication for aging parents, this unseen labour typically falls to women.
MiKare’s “Care Circles” feature recognizes this role by enabling families to securely share health records. A mother can keep her child’s allergy information easily accessible while also monitoring her parent’s prescriptions, all within one platform. This is more than just convenience; it’s a matter of safety. In emergencies, having the right information at your fingertips can save lives.
A Lifespan Companion
What sets MiKare apart is its ability to adapt to every stage of life:
- Teenagers can track menstrual health and schedule early dental or vision checks.
- Twenties and thirties bring fertility, pregnancy, contraception, and fitness goals, alongside management of any recurring conditions.
- Forties and fifties add menopause data, bone health records, and family history information, along with notes on mental well-being and screening results.
- Later life often involves managing medication, making hospital visits, and sharing caregiving responsibilities, all supported in one connected record.
At every stage, MiKare develops alongside you, making sure your health records mirror your journey, not just moments in time.
Why women’s health deserves whole health
The emergence of women’s health apps has been transformative, shattering taboos and establishing digital spaces for empowerment and dialogue. But now, it’s time to advance further.
Women deserve more than apps that diminish them to reproductive organs or single life stages. They need tools that acknowledge their complexity, recognize their caregiving roles, and empower them to share their entire health story, in their words, on their terms.
MiKare is dedicated to creating a truly comprehensive, patient-centered companion that supports individuals through every stage of life and family care. Because women are not just cycles, symptoms, or phases, they are whole human beings whose health deserves to be recognized and supported in its entirety.
The real breakthrough in women’s health won’t come from another cycle tracker or menopause diary. It will happen when women can unify all their records, clues, and phases into one comprehensive health story—one that truly reflects the whole picture.
That is the mission of MiKare Health.
