VIYA, PSI’s sexual wellness social business, is now integrating telehealth into its offering starting in Guatemala. Through its digital platforms, VIYA supports health consumers to make and own their health choices throughout their lifecycle, from menstruation to menopause and beyond. VIYA launched in South Africa in 2021 and Pakistan in 2022. The entry into Guatemala marks VIYA’s first venture into Latin America.
We sat down with PSI Latin America’s VIYA team— Jorge Rivas, Director of Corporate Services; Lilian Vasquez, Brand Coordinator; and Cecilia Pineda, Community Manager —to learn more about the health needs of women and girls in Guatemala, and how VIYA and its newly integrated telehealth services respond.
Learning from women and girls in Guatemala
Jorge Rivas: At PSI, we aim to be locally rooted and globally connected, and the same goes for VIYA. VIYA is a global brand built for all health consumers, but our health and wellness information, products, and services are catered to our target communities. This helps us better meet people’s unique health needs while leveraging learnings from VIYA’s other locations and PSI’s technical and digital health expertise.
VIYA puts the consumer first. Before launching in Latin America, we asked women and girls what was not working for them when it came to sexual health and wellness and how we could support. They told us that the high cost of private clinic services, lack of knowledge about where they could get judgement free services, especially for young girls, and widespread stigma, discrimination and fear stood as major barriers to health and wellness for women in Guatemala.
Using these insights, we prioritized accessible, affordable, discreet, and easily comprehensible health information and services for VIYA Latin America, all delivered through a supportive and trusted community. All VIYA content is in Spanish and our visuals are designed to reflect the diversity of the region. As someone living in Guatemala, I wanted to make sure our VIYA launch was well incorporated into the local context and responsive to health barriers in the region.
Lilian Vasquez: VIYA is an evolution of PSI’s work in Latin America over the past 20+ years, harmonizing existing sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) programming, products, and consumer brands under one consumer-facing social business, VIYA. We are going further than family planning by supporting the menstruation to menopause and beyond journey.
Women have lives, jobs, families that impact their health and as we expand VIYA’s global reach, we are also expanding the resources we offer. VIYA adapted its offering to address the needs of women in Guatemala to help them feel understood, safe, and connected at all stages of their lives. We know that women’s health needs aren’t siloed, so neither should our health services.
Integrating telehealth to bring quality care and judgement-free services to consumers’ fingertips
JR: After 25 years of health programming in this region, we know that people face significant access and stigma barriers to care. Some fear being judged by health providers, friends, and family. Some people experience cost and transportation barriers. We decided to introduce telehealth services into VIYA’s offering to ensure that people can access judgement-free, discreet, and easily accessible care that fits their needs.
We partnered with Organon, an internationally certified telehealth service provider, to strengthen VIYA’s offering with data and insights-driven information and support, while also developing, testing and integrating a telehealth component that enables women to connect and discuss their needs with trusted health providers.
Cecelia Pineda: At VIYA we believe that security is indispensable for our consumers. We have a secure telehealth platform where user data is only accessed by the user and their providers. With the launch of VIYA’s telehealth services, we are one step closer to our goal – to put quality, confidential, and judgement-free care in the hands of every woman and girl.
We didn’t start from scratch. We started on the platforms that health consumers are already engaged with.
CP: We started by introducing VIYA to youth in Guatemala because we want to protect and promote health among young people. Our program Ùsala Bien is a program marketed toward youth and adolescents that provides SRHR information and services. We are piloting VIYA within this youth program in Guatemala, including the telehealth services, and will eventually expand it to adult women using learnings from the youth pilot.
LV: Social media has been an effective tool to help reach young people because it is where they often communicate with one another and gather information. VIYA partners with influencers to raise awareness and speak freely about the health issues that VIYA helps to address. Influencers help reach people on social media to spread key messages about SRHR and VIYA’s offering, ultimately making these topics less taboo and growing VIYA’s community.
Going beyond SRH to provide well-rounded, woman-centered care
JR: Before launching VIYA, we did some qualitative formative research among women in Guatemala to see what they wanted in a femtech health and wellness service. They told us that they wanted more than our family planning programs had been providing.
What these women are asking for is a well-rounded health and wellness offering, that goes beyond contraception– and VIYA answered. We have partnered with a community of ambassadors, including lawyers, nutritionists, psychologists, and menstrual health and pleasure professionals, to provide information on VIYA’s platform that responds to women’s diverse needs to deliver a comprehensive wellness offering.
Starting in Guatemala, looking to the future
JR: Guatemala is an important learning environment for VIYA Global. We are learning how to meet the diverse needs of our consumers, how to best market our services, and how to reduce access barriers using VIYA’s new telehealth offering. Once we have Guatemala up and running, we will expand VIYA and our telehealth services into other countries in Latin America, Central America, and the Dominican Republic.
Telemedicine is new in many of these markets and we are partnering with providers, ministries of health, key opinion leaders, and consumers to advise on the use of these services to help increase access to quality digital healthcare. The introduction of telehealth in Latin American countries will only multiply VIYA’s impact and advance health equity for consumers who are unable or hesitant to access in-person services.
Our investment in telehealth in Guatemala is laying the foundation for the future of VIYA in Latin America – to build a holistic, frictionless health and wellness journey for women and girls, from menstruation to menopause and beyond.
