Each individual’s risk factors and areas requiring attention are more quickly assessed. Dr. Rajita Patil and colleagues launched the UCLA Health Menopause Care Program in late 2023. January 15, 2025
By Sandy Cohen, Senior Writer
4 min read
The hormonal changes that characterize the menopause transition affect most of the body’s organ systems. That’s a lot to cover in one 30-minute medical appointment.
So when Rajita Patil, MD(Link opens in new window) , was developing UCLA Health’s Comprehensive Menopause Care(Link opens in new window) program, she knew she needed a tool to efficiently assess patient well-being across various physical, mental and lifestyle domains.
To address this need, Dr. Patil collaborated with other UCLA Health medical specialists to develop menopause care algorithms tailored to various organ systems. These algorithms help identify each individual’s risk factors and areas requiring attention, enabling personalized, comprehensive menopause care for patients in a time-limited visit.
The tool has been beneficial for menopause care providers at UCLA Health and attracted significant interest from other institutions developing menopause programs, says Dr. Patil, who has filed a provisional patent with the aim of sharing the tool nationwide.
“Collaborating with other institutions to have this tool not only helps them build a program and provide this kind of care without having to reinvent the wheel,” Dr. Patil says, “but also because we’re using this standardized technique and we’re able to collect data all across the nation, that can ultimately improve future clinical care.”
There’s a “huge knowledge gap” when it comes to menopause, she says, which is the least-funded area of women’s health research. This tool will automatically generate valuable, standardized data for much-needed studies on symptom prevalence and treatment effectiveness. Assessing the whole person The UCLA Health menopause program questionnaire Dr. Patil and her colleagues developed assesses bone health; breast health; cardiovascular health; cognition; mental health; sleep; genitourinary health; gut health; hot flashes; and lifestyle practices. Responses are processed through a series of organ-specific algorithms that assign a stoplight-style color code to each area. Green indicates few symptoms and risks, yellow signals that the area needs attention, and red highlights areas of […]
UCLA Health transforms menopause care through organ-specific algorithms
