People ask me all the time — why isn’t healthcare different? Why is there no innovation? Why do we keep doing things the same way?
The honest answer is because it’s hard. It’s really, really hard.
It’s hard and incredibly expensive. It’s time-consuming and stressful. It carries enormous liability and a very high risk of failure. The upside can be substantial, but the downsides are massive. And so if you’re an investor thinking about where to put your money, would you put it into healthcare innovation? Probably not.
You want to put it into places that are going to return your investment. That’s not idealism — that’s how capital works. And it’s one of the reasons the system stays broken.
The other thing that makes it hard is that there are a lot of stakeholders. Physicians want something different than other providers. Providers want something different than patients. Patients want something different than administrators. Everyone wants something different — even though we’re all stuck in the same bad system where everyone’s upset and nobody’s getting what they want. Hospitals are watching the bottom line fall out. Clinicians are burning out and leaving. Patients are being failed. And nobody can agree on a way forward because the incentives are misaligned at every level.
And then there’s the transparency problem.
Do you know why your hospital system just decided to close the labor unit?
Do you know why a whole group of midwives were let go and moved crosstown?
Do you know why three birth centers closed in the last year?
There are reasons for all of it. Those reasons largely have to do with money. With liability. With acceptance of risk. With consolidation. And with a lack of transparency that benefits the powerful over the powerless.
We all know this. The question is what do you do about it.
What we’re doing about it
The Labora Collective is designed to bring the three big stakeholders — people, providers, and institutions — under the same umbrella. Not in theory. In practice. In the content we publish, in the intelligence we produce, in the clinical infrastructure we’re building.
That umbrella is supported by the larger institution of Diosa Ara, a clinical care company founded on one premise: only 10% of health outcomes come from what happens in the exam room. The other 90% comes from the systems you live inside — economic, political, social, environmental. We cover all of it because it’s all connected. That’s not a philosophy. That’s medicine.
This is an incredibly ambitious project. I’ll be honest with you — there are days I wake up and think, why am I doing this? I should go sit on a beach somewhere, take a call every once in a while, write a simple newsletter. Something straightforward.
But straightforward doesn’t fix the system. And the system is what’s broken.
Building healthcare infrastructure requires people with expertise. These aren’t low-wage workers. These are specialists whose knowledge has to be compensated and whose time has to be respected. From a business perspective, there is nothing more expensive than building a team of people who are really good at what they do — people who require organizational infrastructure and resources before they even start generating revenue. For a startup, that’s almost impossible.
And we’re self-funded. Which means every dollar matters. Every subscription matters. Every member who joins now is not just paying for content — they’re funding the construction of something that the traditional investment world won’t touch. Because investors aren’t going to risk their money on proof of concept for something that just helps women. They’re just not. The writing has to already be on the wall. You have to demonstrate the utility first.
So that’s what we’re doing. Building it. Demonstrating it. In the open.
Where we are right now
Right now, the Labora Collective has over 470 in queue across three publications:
🔹 Women’s Health: Empowered Care, Informed Choices — clinical and personal health content. Everything your provider should be telling you but doesn’t have time, incentive, or institutional permission to say.
🔹 In Her Name: Exposing the Cost of Control — political and investigative reporting on the systems that shape your care before you ever walk into a clinic.
🔹 Blueprint: Strategy, Action & Innovation — the infrastructure, technology, and strategy transforming how women’s health is delivered and funded.
These three pillars exist because health doesn’t live in silos.
A policy decision in Washington affects the protocol your OB follows, which affects the options available to you in the delivery room, which affects your postpartum outcomes, which affects your economic stability, which affects your children’s health.
Separating these topics is how the current system keeps you from seeing the full picture. We refuse to do that.
What’s coming
We’re actively building new systems that will change what it means to be part of this community:
🔹 Labora Rounds — a weekly intelligence system tracking developments across 10 critical domains affecting women’s health and reproductive care. Built for clinicians, birthworkers, attorneys, administrators, and anyone who needs to know what’s changing and what it means. Available to our Insiders and Luminaries members.
🔹 The Labora Collective Newsletter — a comprehensive weekly newsletter bringing all three publications together into one integrated experience. Not a table of contents — a curated, connected view of what’s happening in women’s health and what you need to know about it.
🔹 Circle Questions — a monthly AMA for paid members. Your questions. Direct answers.
These are just a few of the systems in development. There is much more including playbook, packs, and specialized content for birth workers such as Doula’s Corner.
Some will launch in the coming weeks. Some will roll out over the next several months. I’ll tell you about each one here, in Viva Voce, as it comes online.
What this means for you
If you’re a free subscriber: You’re going to start hearing from us again. Each week, we’ll share selected articles from inside the Labora Collective — pieces that give you a real window into the quality and depth of what we publish. And you’ll see these Viva Voce updates, where I share what we’re building, what we’re deciding, and why.
If you’re a paying member: Thank you. I mean that. You are funding the construction of healthcare infrastructure that the investment world won’t back because the return isn’t fast enough or certain enough for their models. Your subscription makes this possible. As new systems come online, you’ll be the first to access them.
If you’re considering joining: You’re looking at something that isn’t finished. I want you to know that. We’re building in the open, and what you see today is not what this will look like in six months. But what I can tell you is this — the 470+ articles represent the most comprehensive, integrated women’s health resource I know of. And it gets deeper every week.
The people who join now aren’t just subscribing. They’re investing in infrastructure that doesn’t exist anywhere else. And they’re getting to watch — and shape — how it’s built.
Why “Viva Voce”
It’s Latin for “with living voice.” In medicine, it refers to an oral examination — knowledge delivered directly, in real time, from the person who holds it.
That’s what this is. My voice, from inside the build. Not polished by a communications team. Not run through a marketing filter. Direct updates on what we’re doing, what we’re deciding, and what it means for the system we’re building.
You’re going to hear from me here often. Sometimes about a decision we made and why. Sometimes about something I’m seeing in the landscape that changes our direction. Sometimes about the operational reality of building a company that does what this one is trying to do.
This is what it looks like when a physician stops asking for permission and starts building the system her patients actually need.
Welcome inside.
Dr. Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH
Founder & CEO, Diosa Ara | Creator & Editor-in-Chief, The Labora Collective
The Labora Collective publishes at the intersection of clinical care, policy, and innovation — because only 10% of your health outcomes come from the exam room. The other 90% is what we cover.
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