You Can’t Fix (for Good) What You Can’t Measure

This is a true story: approximately five years ago, when I was just starting to build the B Corp Mamotest, I found myself seated in front of the Minister of Health of a Northern Argentinian province. He was a committed public official, as well as an accessible and welcoming man. He listened patiently while I explained my proposal — to create a telemammography network for breast cancer diagnosis in the province, potentially reaching some 150,000 women — until he interrupted me with a kind smile: “But Guillermo, we don’t need Mamotest. We are doing fine here. We must get about 5,000 mammograms done per month.” 

I was bold enough to share with him my disbelief, so he asked his assistant to get him the actual data from the public records to back up his argument. It took that assistant just a few minutes to come back with the accurate answer:

• It 's 300, sir.

• 300 per month?

• No, sir. Three hundred a year.

That minister’s sudden awareness changed everything — and ignited one of Mamotest’s most impactful, long-term projects with public government so far. All it took was the revelation of a simple, shocking piece of data, that was right there for anyone to see all along. And yet, it had been totally invisible until that day. 

Global summits, specialized conferences, business meetings, investor pitches, government speeches: we all ramble on about the power of data. As the popular business principle goes, “you can’t fix what you can’t measure.” But are we sure: 1. We are getting the data right? 2. Do we have the tools to understand what that data means? 3. Are we doing our best to, in the end, get that data out of a pretty chart in order to use it to transform the reality that very same data represents? Only if we tick those three boxes, can we refer to “data for good.” At Mamotest, data for good is both our strategy and our purpose. 

We have devoted a decade of hard work to the creation of the first telemammography network for high-quality breast cancer diagnosis in Latin America, focusing on underserved women. Along the way, we became an award-winning company, recognized by the United Nations, Harvard University, the World Economic Forum, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Norrsken Foundation and the 

Zayed Sustainability Prize.

And yet, by 2021, something felt off. Data, once again, was on the mark: about 30 percent of our patients did not reach treatment on time. What was going on? Eventually, we detected that the health system had no traceability and patients had no guide on how to approach treatment, resulting in them dropping out of their journey, costing their lives.

By then, it was crystal clear to us: if we truly wanted to universalize access to high-quality medicine, early diagnosis was not enough. From the moment breast cancer patients got their positive result, they had to face the often scary, over-technical and confusing healthcare system — and their own personal fears and barriers, of course. To do so successfully, they needed three essential things: accurate medical information, psychological assistance and emotional support.

To accompany them through this difficult and stressful process, we developed Bolder, the first full-stack platform that works hand-in-hand with patients to help them reach completion of their treatments on time. It is state-of-the-art technology with a human approach.

This human approach is not just a tagline, it’s the way we have gotten things done at Mamotest since day one. I’d dare say 90 percent of our time and effort is devoted to making the patient feel supported, accompanied, and safe. In that process, we realized that no AI could replace the power of another person's voice and full presence. That is why we included the role of Health Navigators at Bolder’s core: female professionals with a psycho-oncological and medical background, who are dedicated to following the cases of a specific group of patients, and, only after completion of that first and vital purpose, also collect 30 key anonymized datapoints per patient that help create the biggest health datasets in Latin America to date.

It is only through our human-centered approach, based on empathy and engagement, that we get testimonies like this one, from a patient at our center in Metepec, Mexico: “Maria (Health Navigator) not only gave me advice on my next steps, but was of immense psychological support. She got so involved with my situation that she ended up planning a family session to tell my husband and daughter about my situation and prepare all of us for the support circle I'd be needing.” 

Every patient is a unique microcosm. Yet, at Mamotest we also reach for the stars: Bolder works with high volumes of patients, generating anonymized, structured data on those patients’ experiences and their lifestyle, resources, risk, economic and psychological situation. Even after these women complete their treatment, the platform is designed to make a 10-year follow-up. Imagine the amount of valuable data we are generating right now, with over 100,000 women and 3,500 health professionals from Mexico and Argentina already using the platform in less than a year since its launch. 

And so, for the first time in the history of oncology, underserved women from Latin America will be part of the global breast cancer statistics. Taking into account that 70 percent of the almost 700,000 women who die of breast cancer annually are part of this population, we are taking a crucial step forward by creating the market that can generate the incentives needed to solve the problem at its root: Bolder’s anonymized datasets will soon be available for industry leaders to reduce time, costs and efforts on creating policies, drugs, access to treatments and clinical trial enrollment. All these new developments and opportunities will include and take into account these women’s realities and needs as never before.

Finally, there is one more “data for good” catch: the patients who are now going through treatment are actually helping other women to get their diagnosis on time. Because it is only by putting our anonymized datasets out there for the healthcare industry that we can help demonetize mammogram studies, therefore increasing access to many more women who, eventually, will become part of that game-changing data, too.

In other words, we’ve created a virtuous circle based on the ethical use of anonymized data. And it is going to save thousands of lives, first in Latin America and then worldwide, in the years to come.