Andrea Ippolito is the CEO and co-founder of SimpliFed, a telehealth firm offering breastfeeding support and nutrition services for babies.

She previously served as the director of the VA Innovators Network, was part of President Joe Biden’s transition team and a presidential innovation fellow in the Obama administration.

Ben caught up with her to discuss the impact of new laws on breastfeeding, maternal health and more.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which requires employers to offer “reasonable accommodations” to pregnant workers and those recovering from childbirth, is now in effect. What impact will it have?

It will level the playing field but also bring transparency that we need.

But the legislation stops short of being equitable. Until we get fathers and nonbirthing parents the same level of support as the birthing parent, then we’ll continue to have issues with women being left behind.

The PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act, which expanded requirements for employers to offer accommodations for pumping breast milk during the workday, went into effect in April. How is it working?

Employers are now more aware of the fact that they need to be thinking about this. They’re also now more aware of the power of providing infrastructure to help support pumping and breastfeeding parents in the workplace to retain them.

We’ve seen more people interested in our services because of it.

Obamacare required commercial insurers and Medicaid plans to cover breastfeeding support at no cost. The Biden administration said last year it was going to begin enforcing those requirements. What would you like to see the administration do?

It’s been over 10 years, and we’ve heard crickets. That is a tremendous disservice because of what’s happening in our nation right now with maternal and child health.

Most health plans aren’t in compliance with the policy. Parents are actively reaching out to try and get these services, and their health plan won’t have any lactation consultants in-network.

What does the current investment climate mean for you and your sector?

Women are sadly still only getting about 2 percent of venture funding. We’re hoping funding for women’s health will rise because we haven’t seen the levels of investment that we should, considering that women are half the population and are major economic drivers.

This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care.

California Democrat Mark Takano is citing evidence from a pilot project that found working fewer hours reduces burnout and improves mental health as good cause to pass the House bill he’s introduced to reduce the standard work week to 32 hours.

Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Ben Leonard at [email protected], Ruth Reader at [email protected], Carmen Paun at [email protected] or Erin Schumaker at [email protected].

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Today on our Pulse Check podcast, host Katherine Ellen Foley talks with Alice Miranda Ollstein about new data showing that access to maternal health care is disappearing in many parts of the nation as a result of OB-GYNs moving or shuttering their practices and more birthing hospitals shutting down.

Black veterans are the least likely of all racial and ethnic groups to have their VA disability claims approved, a new report from Congress’ watchdog found.

While the VA approved white veterans’ disability compensation claims at a 75 percent clip from 2010 through 2020, Black veterans saw an approval rate of only 61 percent over the same period.

Veterans from other racial and ethnic groups had rates closer to white veterans, according to the Government Accountability Office analysis.

Why it matters: The VA’s disability compensation program for veterans hurt during military service paid out more than $112 billion in fiscal 2022.

According to the VA, in 2017, almost 24 percent of veterans were from historically marginalized racial and ethnic backgrounds. By 2045, that group will account for more than 36 percent of all living veterans, the VA projects.

The VA has begun to take steps to improve the collection of race and ethnicity data to help ensure equitable provision of services, including disability compensation, but the agency still lacks any documented plan for how it will improve the data’s availability, the GAO report said.

What’s next? The report included recommendations that the VA develop a race and ethnicity data plan while also working to identify root causes that could contribute to racial and ethnic disparities.

VA responds: “There is no place for any disparities at VA,” said VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes in a statement. “That’s why we recently established an Agency Equity Team and a VBA Equity Assurance Office, whose first order of business is to identify any disparities that exist at VA, understand them, and eliminate them. VA is grateful for GAO for their work to help us better serve Veterans, and we concur with the recommendations laid out in the report.”

Artificial intelligence detects 20 percent more breast cancers from mammograms than traditional screening, according to early results from a Swedish trial.

The interim results, published in Lancet Oncology this week, found that using AI-supported analysis of mammograms alongside one or two radiologists was as good as using two radiologists without AI.

There was also a significant reduction in workload for the radiologists, who spent 44 percent less time reading mammograms.

The particulars: The trial, still ongoing, was conducted in Sweden and looked at more than 80,000 women, ages 40 to 80. Half the participants had two radiologists read their mammograms without AI, while the other half’s mammograms were analyzed by AI and a radiographer — except in cases where AI generated the highest risk score, in which two radiologists assessed the screening.

The study is the first randomized controlled trial to look at using AI in breast cancer screening, and it comes amid a dramatically shifting landscape for the technology and how it’s regulated, POLITICO’s Ashleigh Furlong reports.

Even so: Lead author Kristina Lång from Lund University in Sweden said the interim safety results “are not enough on their own to confirm that AI is ready to be implemented in mammography screening.”

Lång and her colleagues await further trial results that would indicate whether using AI reduces the number of cancers detected between screenings to determine whether it is worth rolling out.

Stephen Duffy, professor of cancer screening at Queen Mary, University of London, said he’s concerned that AI might flag more benign lesions.