If you’re responsible for GTM, product, or capital in digital health — 2026 isn’t far off. It’s the context your decisions need to reflect now.
Health system buyers are already being measured against it. Investors are underwriting with it in mind. And companies that don’t align to where things are headed risk building for a version of healthcare that no longer holds.
Here’s what may actually shape the coming years — and what to watch for if you want to stay relevant in them.
The Market Is Maturing — And Buyers Are Choosing Differently
The digital health sector has moved into a new phase. Funding dropped from $29 billion in 2021 to just over $10 billion in 2024. But that doesn’t signal decline, it’s discipline. What we’re seeing now is a shift toward concentration: average deal sizes are rising, especially for late-stage companies. Fewer experiments and more traction. Buyers are reflecting that shift too. Health systems, payers, and even employers aren’t looking to pilot new tools. They’re looking to integrate what works — and what aligns with reimbursement, staffing gaps, and measurable outcomes.
Buyers are asking: does it plug into our current system? Can we bill for it? Does it show up in our value-based performance? And above all: does it help us do the work more efficiently? If the answer isn’t clear, that solution is unlikely to survive the procurement process.
In short, digital health has grown up. The question now is how it performs under financial and clinical pressure.
Consumer Health Tech Is Everywhere, But Needs Clinical Teeth
In 2023, 35% of U.S. adults were using wearable devices, and nearly 40% were using health or wellness apps. The market is growing fast: U.S. wearable health tech is projected to reach $30 billion by 2026, and digital therapeutics (DTx) are expected to grow from $3.0 billion in 2024 to nearly $5.0 billion in 2025.
But growth alone isn’t enough. Buyers now care less about engagement and more about results — clinical or financial. Payers are starting to reimburse DTx tools, especially for mental health. Employers are subsidizing fitness trackers and wellness apps. Still, to move beyond wellness and become part of standard care, these tools must prove outcomes and integrate into workflows. That means compatibility with EHRs, shared dashboards, and data that providers can use in real time.
Managing patient-generated data is becoming a clinical responsibility. If that data isn’t accurate, relevant, and actionable, it adds noise instead of insight. Privacy is also rising as a competitive edge. As consumers share more personal data, they expect clear protections. In the end, the future of consumer health tech will depend on becoming a trusted clinical tool — not just a lifestyle accessory.
Virtual Care: Stabilized, Selective, and Strongest Where It Pays
Telehealth is no longer novel. It’s normalized. After a rapid pandemic-era rise — 51% of U.S. adults had tried telehealth by February 2021, rising to 55% in 2023 — utilization has settled into a new baseline.
In 2022, about 74% of physicians were using some form of telehealth, and behavioral health continues to lead in volume. In fact, virtual mental health care has become one of the most durable categories, driven by consumer demand, provider shortages, and privacy preferences.
But what we’re seeing now is a strategic contraction. Not all telehealth models scale equally. Walmart and Walgreens, both of whom made early retail health plays, have scaled back after struggling with reimbursement and margins.
Meanwhile, Amazon, with its acquisition of One Medical, is building a hybrid model: brick-and-mortar plus telehealth access. This hybrid approach is where enterprise health systems are headed too. They’re not replacing in-person care — they’re layering virtual capabilities into workflows.
Remote patient monitoring (RPM) is part of that shift. RPM was a $13.4B market in 2022 and is projected to exceed $18B by 2026, growing at ~25% CAGR. But adoption isn’t frictionless. Integrating RPM into EHRs, assigning clinical staff to review alerts, and justifying the cost to payers are ongoing hurdles.
Buyers want solutions that reduce admissions, extend care between visits, and plug into reimbursement streams. Solutions that don’t meet those standards are increasingly being sidelined.
In short, telehealth is here to stay, but only in models where reimbursement, workflow, and outcomes align.
AI in Healthcare: Moving From Promise to Proof
Artificial Intelligence in healthcare is no longer a buzzword but a budget line item. In 2024, the U.S. healthcare AI market hit $8.4 billion, and health AI startups attracted 42% of all global digital health funding. That momentum reflects health systems actively piloting AI for documentation, coding, patient outreach, and triage. And some are now moving beyond pilots.
Buyers want AI that saves time, reduces cost, or improves care — preferably all three. Epic and Microsoft are already embedding GPT-4 models into patient messaging tools and chart summarization. Nuance’s DAX supports ambient clinical documentation. And startups like Hippocratic AI are aiming to build large language models with healthcare-specific guardrails. But pilot fatigue is setting in. Hospital CIOs and CMOs are asking: is the AI safe? Is it accurate? Does it save time or create rework?
We’re also seeing a shift from clinical to administrative use cases. The low-hanging fruit is automation: inbox management, coding assistance, scheduling. These uses require less regulatory clearance and deliver faster ROI. Meanwhile, higher-stakes applications — like diagnostics or care recommendations — are still under scrutiny.
By 2026, most EHRs and digital health platforms will feature AI-assisted workflows. But adoption will depend on trust, usability, and proof. Buyers don’t need to be convinced your AI is worth using.
Interoperability: From Regulatory Mandate to Deal Filter
Health data exchange has been promised for decades. But thanks to regulatory pressure, it’s finally becoming real. Under the 21st Century Cures Act, certified EHRs must now support FHIR APIs that allow third-party integration and patient data access. The TEFCA framework is also gaining traction, linking disparate health information exchanges into a national network. These changes are reshaping buyer expectations.
What used to be a feature is now a baseline. If your product can’t push and pull data from Epic, Cerner, or a health plan’s data lake, it’s likely to get cut before the demo. Integration is now a requirement. Health systems don’t want new portals or data silos. They want modules embedded directly into EHR workflows, using SMART on FHIR standards, and surfacing insights where clinicians already work.
This shift is also driving middleware adoption. Players like Redox, Health Gorilla, and InterSystems are becoming critical partners in the digital health ecosystem. They enable faster integration, higher data quality, and more scalable architecture.
For buyers, interoperability is not just about data movement, but workflow cohesion, user experience, and reducing administrative burden. Contracts increasingly include interoperability guarantees, and failing to meet them can kill a deal. The winners by 2026 mean treating interoperability as a design principle, not an afterthought.
Cybersecurity: Now a Go/No-Go in Enterprise Sales
Cybersecurity has gone from risk category to board-level concern. Between 2020 and 2024, over 250 million U.S. patient records were exposed across more than 700 large-scale breaches. Health systems are under siege from ransomware, phishing, and increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks. And as digital health tools multiply, so do the potential vulnerabilities.
This has direct implications for every sales cycle. CIOs and CISOs now want to know if your solution is secure by design. Does it comply with HITRUST or NIST CSF frameworks? Has it undergone penetration testing? What happens in the event of a breach? Who holds the liability?
Products that can’t answer those questions with clarity and rigor are being disqualified early. We’re seeing vendors asked to include security posture documentation in RFPs, and some deals are contingent on passing third-party audits. In certain cases, buyers are inserting breach-related indemnity clauses into contracts.
Compliance is only one part of the equation — keeping hospital operations running and patients safe is just as critical. Cyberattacks don’t just disrupt IT systems; they can put lives at risk. That’s why cybersecurity is now a core consideration when evaluating digital health solutions. By 2026, product security will be assessed with the same rigor as clinical outcomes and revenue potential.
Public and Population Health: Strategic, Not Just Social
Population health is now core to performance under value-based care. Tools like Arcadia, Innovaccer, and Epic’s Healthy Planet module help identify care gaps, stratify risk, and coordinate outreach. Increasingly, these platforms are integrating SDOH data, enabling more targeted interventions that address both medical and social needs.
Public health infrastructure is also modernizing. In the wake of COVID-19, state and local agencies have secured funding to overhaul data systems. Initiatives like the CDC’s Data Modernization Initiative aim to build real-time surveillance capacity, linking clinical, lab, and community data.
Meanwhile, platforms like Unite Us are building bridges between clinical care and social services. These tools allow closed-loop referrals to food banks, housing support, and transportation services. As more payers and health systems take on downside risk, addressing these social drivers isn’t just goodwill, but risk management.
What buyers want in this space is actionability. Dashboards that just surface problems aren’t enough. Population health tools must connect insights to interventions. That means embedding outreach workflows, care manager tools, and patient-facing communication. By 2026, expect population health to be tightly coupled with enterprise care management — and evaluated not just on data analytics, but on impact.
Value-Based Care Is the Gravitational Center
Value-based care is accelerating, too. CMS has set a target for all Medicare beneficiaries to be in accountable care arrangements by 2030. Private payers are already there in some markets. That shift is changing what gets funded, what gets purchased, and what survives.
Digital health solutions that align with this shift are gaining ground. Remote monitoring platforms that reduce readmissions. Chronic care management tools that boost engagement. Predictive analytics that help clinicians meet quality targets. All of these are now tied to revenue — not just cost.
Importantly, payment models are evolving to support this. New CPT codes for caregiver support, behavioral interventions, and longitudinal care planning are creating fresh revenue streams. At the same time, payers are getting savvier. Some are now insisting on outcome-based contracts: if your solution doesn’t reduce hospitalizations or improve scores, you don’t get the full fee.
That’s creating new pressure on vendors. You can’t just claim value. You have to prove it. Contracts increasingly require data-sharing, ROI tracking, and shared-risk models. If your solution helps a provider succeed under VBC, you’re in. If not, you’re out.
Capital Flows: Fewer Bets, Bigger Checks, Sharper Filters
Right now, capital follows results, not potential. Investors are looking for clear signs of traction. They want to see reimbursement in place, signed enterprise deals, and real usage embedded in daily workflows. They expect measurable cost savings or outcome improvements. If those boxes are checked, the funding comes through. If not, the conversation ends.
We’re also seeing consolidation. Point solutions that can’t scale on their own are being acquired, merged, or shuttered. Platformization is a dominant theme. Buyers want fewer vendors, and that’s why startups that can integrate multiple functions — like RPM + CCM — are gaining favor.
Active investors already know the market is moving from noise to infrastructure, and they’re betting on companies that understand that too.
Digital Health Trends in 2026 & Beyond: Infrastructure, Not Add-On
By 2026, digital health will no longer be a sidecar to healthcare. It will be healthcare. From how patients engage, to how providers document, to how outcomes are measured and paid for — technology will be embedded, not adjacent.
The market is moving beyond curiosity to real commitment. Buyers have stopped asking if something is innovative. Instead, they want to know if it actually works—here, now, and under real-world conditions.
Expectations have risen. Buyers now demand proof of impact, seamless integration, and clear financial benefits—not just potential.
The next generation of digital health leaders will only succeed by addressing today’s real challenges in the context of tomorrow’s healthcare system.
If you’re rethinking your product strategy, go-to-market plan, or investor narrative to reflect where the market is actually headed — not where it used to be — we can help.
