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By John Whyte, MD
Chief Executive Officer, American Medical Association
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A little while back, a patient came to see me and said she thought she had sleep apnea. When I asked why, she said she snored. I asked how she knew, and she replied, "My watch told me."
She opened an app that had recorded her snoring, complete with timestamps. Pretty impressive.
She was right to be concerned, and her body habitus supported the diagnosis. But even with all that information, given the rules around coverage and reimbursement, I still had to send her to a sleep lab. She had to lie in a strange bed, wired up for hours, and wait for a formal evaluation—despite already collecting relevant data at home.
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This wasn't a failure of the patient or the technology. It was a failure to integrate that technology and data into the way care actually happens. And that's exactly what so many would-be health care "disruptors" overlook.
Everywhere you turn in health care these days, someone wants to be a disruptor. The word pops up in pitch decks, on conference stages, and in glossy marketing materials. But the more I hear it, the more I wonder: Is this fixation on "disruption" a distraction from real progress?
Change is necessary. Our system is far from perfect. Innovation holds enormous promise to improve access, outcomes, and efficiency while better serving patients. But disruption for its own sake, absent a clear understanding of how care is delivered, is shortsighted.
Health care isn't like other industries. It's deeply personal and highly regulated. Declaring the whole system broken and designing new tools in a vacuum might feel bold. But in practice, it's a recipe for failure.
True innovation comes not from tearing down systems but from thoughtfully evolving them. It requires collaboration with clinicians and patients to design solutions that fit into, or even reimagine, existing workflows.
The smartwatch example above shows both the promise and the problem of health care innovation. Wouldn't it be better if that data flowed straight to clinicians, allowing us to spot issues without an overnight lab visit? Sure, the data isn't quite clinical grade—yet. The question is whether our systems will be ready to use it when it is.
Too often, promising technology overlooks fundamentals like physician workflow or human experience. Take continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), for example. They've changed the way many people with diabetes understand their health. But CGMs haven't fully disrupted diabetes care. They often don't integrate with patients' medical records, and most insurers don't cover them unless a patient requires insulin. The tech is there, but the system hasn't caught up to effectuate the best outcomes.
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AI scribes are another example. The best ones understand how doctors work and automatically place notes into the chart. But many others require clinicians to copy and paste transcripts, adding friction instead of removing it. You can see how some companies succeed by understanding physician practice while others don't. Until these tools are fully integrated, they won't deliver on their promise.
Or consider Forward. The company set out to reinvent primary care with a telehealth model supported by in-person diagnostic "pods." The approach promised convenience and scalability. But despite raising more than $650 million, Forward recently shut down. Part of the challenge was that many patients don't want to talk about their health in a public setting such as a mall, even if it's inside a kiosk. Care isn't just about data and devices. It's about trust and connection—and yes, the environment. Telehealth may work at home, but perhaps not so much in a shopping center.
In one Deloitte survey, 84 percent of health care providers said workflow integration is absolutely essential when adopting new tools—but only 18 percent said the tools they're offered actually deliver. Research from the American Medical Association found that nearly all doctors believe AI tools can only succeed if they're fully integrated with electronic health records.
Patients feel similarly. While roughly two in three say they use health-related apps or devices, only 11 percent say their regular provider recommended one, underscoring a lack of integration into routine clinical care.
These gaps aren't just about execution. They reflect a deeper issue. Too often, we lead with shiny new technology and only then ask what problem it might solve, instead of starting with the problem and designing from there.
I'm ultimately optimistic about technology's ability to disrupt health care. But that only happens when it's deployed with humility and a clear understanding of how care actually works. Too often, the sprint to be a disruptor leaves genuine usefulness in the dust.
Finding the right role for new technology is often easier said than done. Even companies that practically wrote the book on consumer behavior and customer experience have struggled in health care. Look at Amazon. It didn't win the book wars because of flashy gadgets alone. It used technology to understand the customer experience and made it more enriching. People could find what they wanted, see the price, click once, and have it at their door in days. The tech worked because it fit the way people actually wanted to shop. Amazon nailed the fundamentals, took a big swing, and crushed it.
Now fast forward. Amazon has been trying to bring that same consumer-first mindset to health care. It bought One Medical, launched Amazon Pharmacy, and set out to make getting care feel as simple and seamless as ordering toothpaste. It's an ambitious effort. But medicine is a trickier puzzle. Amazon ran into complicated regulations, skeptical providers, wary patients, and other challenges. In short, ambition met reality—and projects like Amazon Care and Amazon Halo paid the price.
It's time to stop chasing disruption and start building for the real world. That means designing tools that fit the way care actually happens and making sure our systems can keep up. In health care, the best innovations don't blow things up. They quietly, powerfully make things better.
Dr. John Whyte is chief medical officer of WebMD.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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