Kensa Health: Putting women’s health first

Women's Health digital platform
An EPIC project
Kensa Health logo
 
For a great example of lean agile development, you need look no further than Truro-based Kensa Health, who reached out to EPIC in 2021 with a robust idea for a women’s health platform and plenty of competitive analysis research to support it. With EPIC ’s assistance, they co-designed their product with end users from the very beginning, ensuring that the platform is as relevant, useful, and user-friendly as possible and that no effort or grant funding was wasted throughout the production process.
The result? A female-focused web platform that provides up-to-date health content written by medical professionals and affordable web courses for women on topics that currently lack support, information, and education. Founders Caitlin Gould and Dr. Rose Abbott are also working on a companion mobile app that will enable women to maintain their personal health information on their phones, providing a full and accurate medical history that they can access when needed to optimise appointments.
In addition to addressing wider women’s health issues, the Truro-based company aligns with EPIC’s goals to specifically fill gaps within Cornwall’s healthcare system by enabling women in rural communities to access accurate and affordable support at a time convenient to them.

Background

Statistics from the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC)’s ‘Women’s Health: Let’s Talk About It’ 2021 survey showed a clear gap in the women’s health market that Kensa Health founders Caitlin Gould and Dr. Rose Abbott wanted to address:
  • More than four in five women surveyed (85%) faced multiple experiences of not being listened to by healthcare professionals.
  • Most women surveyed (74%) relied on friends and family for healthcare information first, followed by Google searches (71%). Healthcare professionals were only the fourth most relied-upon source of information.
  • Only 40% of women surveyed could conveniently access healthcare services in terms of location, while only 24% were able to conveniently access services in terms of timing.
Kensa Health set out to fill these gaps by providing a women’s health platform that offers women medically accurate but easily understandable content on unsupported topics such as polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), early-stage pregnancy, and gestational diabetes.
General support and advice from the health library is free, with specialist in-depth courses available at an affordable price to make them accessible to as many women as possible. The first course – a video series on Living with Endometriosis – launched in October 2022 at a one-time cost of £45.
As a software company director with more than 15 years’ experience in the digital realm, co-founder Caitlin Gould was able to minimise expenditure by utilising her web-building skills without having to outsource. Practicing GP Dr. Rose Abbott ensured that only the most accurate medical content was approved for the site.

How has EPIC helped Kensa Health?

With the help of key EPIC contact, Samantha Prime , the Kensa Health team worked with researchers at the University of Plymouth to find evidence base solutions for their project, obtain user feedback early in the product lifecycle, and secure the funding they required to create a minimum viable product.
They were awarded £26,500 in match grant funding after impressing the Challenge Fund team with their enthusiasm and experience.
With the help of key EPIC contact, Samantha Prime , the Kensa Health team worked with researchers at the University of Plymouth to find evidence base solutions for their project, obtain user feedback early in the product lifecycle, and secure the funding they required to create a minimum viable product.
They were awarded £26,500 in match grant funding after impressing the Challenge Fund team with their enthusiasm and experience.

After identifying the clear inequity between women’s health and men’s health, Kensa Health identified how they could contribute to addressing this challenge. I feel the clear link to regional need and the expertise of the innovators, alongside their clear drive and passion gave confidence of their success.

Challenge Fund manager Ben Hugill
EPIC coordinated a co-design launch event on 1 March 2022, with 29 women aged between 25-60 taking part in interactive research activities that helped inform product development.
Kensa Health used participant feedback from this event to adjust the direction of their content as part of their lean agile process. Two key developments included the provision of an endometriosis guide for employers and the creation of a personal health profile app, which is currently in the early stage of production.

That’s a piece of content that we never would have realised was important and actually it’s potentially one of the most useful bits of content on our site. That’s just an example of how by speaking with women and by engaging with them and getting their feedback it really helps us make sure we’re building out the things that they need.

Caitlin Gould
Kensa Health founders Caitlin Gould and Dr. Rose Abbott.

Kensa Health founders Caitlin Gould and Dr. Rose Abbott.

Without EPIC we would have struggled to get that balance of pushing our company forwards, whilst having access to the research side and the knowledge that EPIC has provided us with..

Having EPIC with us from quite early on has been so helpful that we have this constant development process.

What’s next for Kensa Health?

With EPIC’s support, Kensa Health launched their first paid video course (Living with Endometriosis) in October 2022 and have additional web courses in development. They are assessing the impact of these courses to test their suitability for social prescribing, which would enable them to offer the courses for free and potentially reach a wider audience.
Kensa Health are currently also working on a personal health plan mobile app that will provide them with a second product stream, placing them in a stronger position for angel funding investment. EPIC supported them to attend the Slush startup event in Helsinki in November 2022 to begin their fundraising outreach. Collaborations with local companies, including Newquay-based app developer Buzz Interactive and Cornish PR company Halo are just the start of the boost Kensa Health hopes to give the local economy over the next few years, with multiple positions ready to fill as soon as adequate funding is secured.
Having worked with dozens of companies developing digital health innovations for the health and care sector Samantha believes that “Kensa Health’s approach to agile evidence-based innovation is exemplary.”