October 30, 2017- Rock Health, a digital health venture fund based in San Francisco, released their yearly report on women in healthcare leadership. Since their first report in 2012, the landscape for women in healthcare has remained mostly unchanged, leaving 45% of women polled to feel cynical about the future. While this year looked mostly the same regarding female representation in the Fortune 500 C-suite realm of leadership (only 11% of hospital CEOs are women), a beacon of light did emerge. Female CEOs represented 24% of digital health companies founded in 2016, compared to 16% in 2015.
Rock Health predicts that there are a few reasons for the increase in female founders, including a greater focus on diversity among investors and 
the industry. Another reason? Women see a need in the market to create companies that are female-friendly. CancerIQ CEO Feyi Olopade, who founded CancerIQ in 2013 is quoted:
"I started CancerIQ not only to fill a need in the cancer market but also to create the kind of company I dreamed of working at. My mom is my co-founder and nearly half our employees are women. But my goal is to make women the majority of our company because that’s how you solve women’s health problems."
Click here to read the full report from Rock Health
