PRESS RELEASE － For immediate release
Women are navigating their health blind: a new tool aims to change that
Montreal, April 10, 2026 — AppGuide and Femmes en santé are launching the Passeport Féminin, a portal of trustworthy resources to help navigate and find direction in health decisions, available anytime and designed to support the girls and women of Quebec at every stage of life.
In Canada, women spend on average 24% more of their lives in poor health than men. Yet they have few reliable reference points to help them navigate digital health resources.
The result: six out of ten women turn first to online resources, and one in three uses health apps — a landscape where information is abundant but uneven. Faced with contradictory content and tools of variable quality, many come away more confused than when they started.
"The problem isn't a lack of tools in women's health. It's that they're scattered, difficult to evaluate, and rarely integrated into care. Today, barely 1% of health apps meet rigorous quality criteria. The Passeport changes that: it gathers, filters, and finally makes these resources usable," says Michaël Cardinal.
In a context of professional shortages and growing pressure on the health system, better equipping women patients becomes a concrete lever to improve the quality of care and clinical exchanges.
That's the context in which the Passeport Féminin is emerging: a free digital space bringing together validated resources organized around women's needs and life situations, evaluated against standards of quality, safety, and ease of use. It gives women greater control over their health by facilitating access to reliable information and helping counter misinformation.
The Passeport Féminin enables users to:
understand their situation through validated content;
identify relevant tools without having to sift through hundreds of results;
be better prepared before a consultation;
move forward at their own pace, without an imposed path.
"Women deserve better than a Google search when making important health decisions. This project answers a real need: structuring access to reliable information," says Isabelle Girard, co-founder of Femmes en santé.
With only 7% of federal research funding specifically targeting women's health, many observers point to a systemic lack of attention in this area. Canada, in fact, ranks 64th on the Hologic Global Women's Health Index.
A solution designed to integrate with care
Beyond its direct access to the public, the Passeport Féminin is designed to be used in care settings, pharmacies, and community organizations, to better support women patients along their journey.
A first deployment will take place with CIUSSS du Nord-de-l'Île-de-Montréal and CISSS des Laurentides, as part of a project supported by MEDTEQ+ AVISÉ funding.
To explore the Passeport Féminin: femme.appguide.ca
About AppGuide
Founded in 2018 and formerly known as TherAppX, AppGuide is a Quebec-based company that helps health organizations guide their patients, employees, and clinicians to the best digital health tools and content. Its platform makes it possible to identify, evaluate, and deliver trustworthy resources — apps, educational content, self-care tools — under the organization's brand, within its care pathways, and for its populations.
AppGuide maintains a base of more than 4.6 million digital health resources, continuously updated, including 14,500+ self-care apps identified as relevant. For each engagement, AppGuide refines the selection according to the organization's specific needs — without ever starting from scratch. Its solutions are deployed with more than 24 partner organizations and reach 7,500 monthly active users.
About Femmes en santé
Founded by Joé Harvey, Isabelle Girard, and Danièle Henkel, Femmes en santé is a movement that brings together women leaders to advance women's health. Through its initiatives, its community, and its international collaborations, the organization acts as a catalyst of influence, collaboration, and transformation.
Media contact
Claudia Landry
Senior Director
Décision, consulting firm
clandry@decision.ca
438-830-7733